Thrive
St. Pete’s sewage facility upgrades earn national recognition
St. Petersburg has earned its first Envision Award for drastically improving a wastewater facility’s environmental sustainability and resiliency. The national recognition is welcome news following an unprecedented hurricane season.
The Washington D.C.-based Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure utilizes its Envision program to advance sustainable infrastructure through education, training and third-party verification. St. Petersburg is now one of just three Florida cities to receive recognition for a wastewater project.
St. Petersburg received the award, announced March 21, for its $48 million Northwest Water Reclamation Facility Improvements Project. Maeven Rogers, sustainability and resiliency director, credited a “big team effort” for navigating a “very difficult” process.
“We’re getting some really great technical expertise when working towards Envision certification,” Rogers told the Catalyst. “Things we might not have thought about, we’re starting to think about. It is not easy to get.”
A rendering of the completed project, which met 64 environmental sustainability and resiliency standards.
The American Public Works Association, American Society of Civil Engineers and American Council of Engineering Companies founded the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) in 2010. Rogers compared the Envision program to LEED (leadership in energy and environmental design) certification for infrastructure.
Eligibility requires meeting 64 sustainability and resiliency indicators, called credits, organized within five categories: Quality of life, leadership, resource allocation, the natural world and climate and resilience. The credits encompass materials, energy, conservation, planning, collaboration and other related aspects.
The city’s project team incorporated several enhancements into the project’s initial design, including reinforcing new structures to withstand up to 154 mph winds. They also implemented stormwater management systems around the facility’s new reject storage tanks, upgraded landscaping to improve aesthetics, improved roads for fire department access and removed five obsolete buildings.
The ISI acknowledged St. Petersburg’s efforts to prevent facility-related wastewater spills, “even under extreme conditions.” Over 50% of project materials are recycled or reused.
In a prepared statement, Anthony Kane, CEO of the ISI, said the city “demonstrated a strong commitment to environmental stewardship and community well-being.” He also believes the city’s implementation of the Envision framework “sets a powerful example for other municipalities.”
The Northwest Water Reclamation Facility opened in 1957 at 7500 26th Ave. N. It now processes 20 million gallons daily.
Rogers noted that a new screening facility will reduce the number of trucks needed to haul away captured solids and trash, thus lowering carbon emissions. An odor control system will minimize impacts on the surrounding community.
Community outreach is an Envision focal point, which led the city to adorn a storage tank with a mural highlighting the Azalea neighborhood. Rogers said that is an additional benefit that “may not have been thought about previously.”
The facility is adjacent to Azalea Middle School, home of the Black Knights.
Replacing an aging pump station and building two new 7.5 million-gallon reject water tanks will create a citywide impact. The additional equipment – and an existing 5-million-gallon tank – will significantly bolster storage capacity during increasingly frequent extreme weather events.
Rogers explained that the pump station can divert stormwater from the lower-lying Southwest Water Reclamation Facility. Hurricane Milton’s projected storm surge forced officials to shutter the plant.
Rogers said the northwest improvements project is “absolutely a wonderful step” toward mitigating inundation at the southwest facility. She also noted that energy loss has a “huge” impact on wastewater operations, and ensuring systems have power redundancies is another focus.
Officials expect the project, part of the St. Pete Agile Resilience Plan (SPAR), to conclude in December. Analyzing system vulnerabilities is a key aspect of the initiative, and Rogers said the community “will be very, very happy” with its accelerated results.
The city has identified $1.5 billion in SPAR projects to complete through 2030. Rogers called environmental resiliency a public safety issue that will provide myriad job opportunities for people who “want to feel like they’re part of a greater mission.”
A free, new program designed to promote urban sustainability, reduce flooding and foster economic development through green solutions will soon launch under the Office of Supplier Diversity’s umbrella.
The CREST (Coastal Resilience and Environmental Sustainability Training) initiative provides business owners with additional green infrastructure – permeable pavement, rain gardens, green roofs and stormwater management landscaping – skills. The Ark Innovation Center will host the initial, week-long course from March 31 through April 4.
“Green infrastructure and how we plant our landscapes are going to play a huge role in this as well,” Rogers said of environmental resiliency. “Those kinds of businesses are going to be very successful in the future.
“There is a lot going on, which is super exciting.”
