Lady Lake commissioners last week approved an agreement that allows Fruitland Park to pump upwards of 50,000 gallons of effluent a day to Lady Lake’s sewer treatment facility.
Fruitland Park City Manager Gary La Venia said his city will spend an estimated $1.4 million to build a lift station and sewer line from Fruitland Park approximately 1.7 miles to the Lady Lake treatment plant under terms of the 10-year agreement.
Fruitland Park will install a new pump at Lady Lake’s lift station and a new sewer line from the lift station to the treatment plant, Fruitland Park Community Services Director Charlie Rector explained.
Fruitland Park will pay an estimated $19,000 per month for sewer treatment. That figure will increase as more houses and businesses are added to Fruitland Park’s system.
Rector said 2,050 new homes under way in the Villages of Fruitland Park are not affected by the agreement, but the city anticipates development of up to 1,500 new homes outside the Villages in projects that were approved before the recession and are now re-starting.
Fruitland Park’s beleaguered sewer system currently processes less than 50,000 gallons of effluent per day. The system was designed to handle twice that much but design and equipment issues limit the system’s peak capacity to only about 75,000 gallons per day.
Rector said the city’s treatment facility on Spring Lake Road will be demolished as soon as new facilities go online.
Rector warned commissioners late last year that the city might face a building moratorium next year unless improvements were undertaken. Commissioners considered an estimated $20 million for a new sewer plant, $4 million to pipe sewage to Leesburg’s regional plant or $1.4 million for lines to the Lady Lake plant.
A joint sewer agreement between Fruitland Park and Lady Lake was first proposed by former Fruitland Park Mayor Joe Grubb and Lady Lake Town Manager Cliff Burgess 27 years ago.
“It would be better to have one big sewer treatment plant than to have a whole bunch of little bitty plants all around,” Grubb said then.
Lady Lake’s regional sewer plant can process up to one million gallons per day.
Fruitland Park commissioners will consider a proposed ordinance at its July 23 meeting that will require restaurants and other businesses to install grease traps costing from $900 to more than $6,000, depending on the restaurant capacity.
La Venia said the ordinance will require a series of measures and stringent monitoring controls designed to prevent toxic waste from reaching Lady Lake’s treatment plant.
