City of St Petersburg FL : Reclaimed leak stopped (twice) at Northeast Water Reclamation Facility

St. Petersburg, Fla. (January 18, 2018) - About 10,000 gallons of fully-treated reclaimed-quality water leaked from a holding tank due to cold weather and a not-quite-tightened flange on a 36' valve at the Northeast Water Reclamation Facility (NEWRF) at 1160 62^nd Avenue NE.

The unauthorized discharge - which began around 5:00 am Thursday and was stopped and repaired by 7:00 a.m. - took place during the coldest part of the morning during an unusually cold snap of weather after a contractor failed to fully tighten bolts on a newly-installed flange.

Following the discovery and repair of that issue, a level sensor failed, which opened a valve from a 10 million gallon storage tank. This allowed another (estimated) 266,000 gallons of fully-treated reclaimed-quality water to be discharged from the tank. While much of the leak was contained in the soil near the tank on-site at the NEWRF property, some did convey into a nearby ditch line which leads to detention ponds south of the NEWRF.