- May 1, 2024
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The city of Ormond Beach was fined $38,494.34 by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for three environmental incidents that occurred in 2020.
The first was the gravity sewer main failure at the intersection of Clyde Morris Blvd. and West Granada Blvd. on July 29, 2020. The city reports it manually trucked away almost two million gallons of sewage and were able to create a temporary bypass system to ensure 8.5 million gallons of sewage were treated properly. Permanent repairs were completed by Aug. 19.
The second incident was a reclaim pipe leak that impacted the Halifax River two days prior to the Clyde Morris break on July 27, 2020. It was repaired within one week, “even when repair plans were forced to be delayed due to Hurricane Isaias,” the city states.
The last incident pertains to the city exceeding its permit limits for fecal detection and carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand levels in the treated effluent from the water reclamation facility, the staff report states. Plans to modify the facility’s chlorine contact chamber to fix this issue are active.
FDEP consent orders are not unusual, the city stated, and are a mechanism for the state agency to aid utilities in making improvements.
“This was an unfortunate series of events that were addressed immediately to ensure compliance with all disclosures and mitigation," Mayor Bill Partington said. "The city is committed to meeting or exceeding all requirements of the [FDEP] and we continue to make strides and commit funding to improving the quality of the water in our city and beyond."
The fines, with the exception of a $750 administrative fee for FDEP, will be put toward pollution prevention projects in the city.
“We didn’t want to just fix the emergency problems that occurred, we wanted to ensure that the system keeps performing well in the future too,” said City Engineer and Public Works Director Shawn Finley in a supplied statement.
He explained that they have installed pressure gauges on both sides of the Halifax River to make sure issues are corrected swiftly.
The City Commission approved the consent order at its March 2 meeting.
This story was updated at 9:13 a.m. on Thursday, March 4, to correct that the city reported it manually trucked away almost two million gallons of sewage, not $2 million gallons of sewage.
The city of Ormond Beach adopted changes to its animal tethering ordinance upon second reading at the March 2 City Commission meeting, adding a definition of what constitutes “adequate shelter” for animals.
The ordinance defines such shelter as one that is suitable for the age, height, size, breed and type of animal; is clean and dry, when applicable; and provides bedding to protect the animal from the elements.
“Chaining or tethering any dog and leaving it out in extreme weather with little or no shelter is an inhumane practice and the city of Ormond Beach is proud to put measures in place to keep our animals safe and healthy,” said Mayor Bill Partington.
The County Council has appointed members to the new ECHO and Volusia Forever advisory committees.
For ECHO, the council reappointed Patricia Northey, Gerard Pendergast, Reggie Santilli and Jack Surrette. Five new members were added: Jeffrey Ault, Saralee Morrissey, Pat Patterson, David Romeo and Stacey Simmons.
Serving on the Volusia Forever Board are Mary Anne Connors, Steven Crump, Gerald Fieser, John Gamble, Jessica Gow, Derek LaMontagne, Derrick Orberg, Suzanne Scheiber and Stony Sixma.
All will serve for two years.
