The Chiefland, Fla., city sewer system manager and the developer of a 456-space RV resort disagreed over whether a lift station will be able to handle an expected 34,200 gallons of sewerage per day, the Chiefland Citizen reported.
Tommy Miles, who is developing the resort with Lois Livingston, said city Sewer Manager Randy Wilkerson signed off on the paperwork for a state Department of Environmental Protection permit for the RV resort stating that city could handle the collection and transmission of wastewater from the resort. The permit was issued Oct. 12, 2015,
But now Wilkerson has figures from the city’s engineer, Andrew Cardwell, that say the city’s lift station (basically a pump that pushes the fluid through the city’s lines) cannot handle the extra wastewater. The four-foot pipe and pump also serves the Walmart, shopping center, and businesses along the outer boundaries of the Walmart shopping center.
“Mr. Wilkerson said they discovered the lift station is at capacity,” Miles said. “Which kind of hit us like a shock.”
Miles indicated that the first phase of the resort construction will install 96 RV spaces, creating a sewer load equivalent to 25 homes. The discharge would be 5 gallons per minute, Miles said. When the park is at full capacity of 456 spaces the discharge will be 34,200 gallons per day, about 20 gallons per minute.
Mayor Teal Pomeroy said at the time the paperwork was signed by Wilkerson, “We were thinking that the capacity was going to be upgraded by the hospital (project).”
The city had applied for a $1.5 million state grant to build roads and water and sewer infrastructure for a proposed hospital next to the resort’s location. But the hospital project has fallen through and the grant application had to be withdrawn.
City Attorney Norm Fugate went on to say that he thinks the city’s concurrency code will require the developer to pay “for whatever it costs to hook up to what our systems are.”
But Commissioner Rollin Hudson weighed in, asking, “Even if our employee had done wrong by checking the box?”
The city and Miles will do more research and bring it back to the city commissioners later.
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