With a $15 million grant from the state, Port Orange city officials told News 6 they’ll be able to make major upgrades to their wastewater facility to ensure it doesn’t go down again during a major flooding or hurricane event.
“The project is going to help get those electrical components up and out of the flood zone or the flood plain so they can continue to operate even through the extreme events of flooding,” said city engineer, Junos Reed.
Reed said the filters and emergency generators will be replaced over the next two years.
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“The site may flood but all of the pumps and power will continue to operate as normal,” said Reed.
The city is now lining thousands of feet of stormwater pipes and upgrad ing lift and pump stations to help with drainage.
That’s not what happened in 2022 during Hurricane Ian. Reed said they lost power due to the flood waters reaching the electrical boxes.
“We did see a lot of our lift stations that pump the wastewater to the wastewater plant were not operational because of power loss,” he said.
The facility flooded and wastewater backed up in the city.
Reed said right now they’re working with emergency backup generators and these upgrades will ensure that doesn’t happen again.
“We don’t want to have overflows of wastewater that can affect the surrounding environment,” he said.
This project is just one of several projects the city of Port Orange is doing to try and solve any flooding issues after Ian.
The city is now also lining thousands of feet of stormwater pipes and upgrading lift and pump stations to help with drainage.
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