Daytona Beach News -Journal: Funds Drying Up for Palm Coast Desalination Plant

Funds drying up for Palm Coast desalination plant
By FRANK FERNANDEZ, Staff writer send an email to frank.fernandez@news-jrnl.com
June 10, 2011 12:05 AM
Posted in:

Flagler

Tagged:

desalination

PALM COAST -- The proposed Coquina Coast desalinization plant to turn seawater into drinking water will likely go down the drain since the state is expected to stop funding the project, officials said.

The St. Johns River Water Management District is unlikely to continue funding the planning process for the $200 million plant, district spokesman Ed Garland said Thursday.

That would likely halt the project, Palm Coast City Manager Jim Landon said in a phone interview Thursday.

"Palm Coast has always said it has to be a regional effort supported by the state, so if the state is pulling its support, I find it highly unlikely that there would be local support, not just from Palm Coast but others involved," Landon said.

As if the looming loss of state money isn't bad enough, the city of Leesburg has decided to drop out of the Coquina Coast group. Besides the state and Palm Coast, Leesburg was the other big player in the effort to build a plant projected to produce 10 to 15 million gallons of drinking water daily starting in 2020.

Leesburg utility director Ray Sharp said this week that "due to lack of funds" the city would stop participating, said Richard Adams, the utility director for Palm Coast.

In September, the Coquina Coast group agreed to pay $1,903,035 to Malcolm Pirnie engineers for the project's current phase. Palm Coast will pay $1,042,591 toward that amount and Leesburg $483,200. DeLand and St. Johns County will each pay $21,300 as nonvoting members.

The St. Johns River Water Management District had budgeted $2,518,481 to help pay for planning and another $14 million to help build the plant. Water management district officials said in March the agency had already provided $345,531.

The water management district is facing declining revenues from property taxes and state and federal dollars, Garland said. The district's $254.7 million budget this year represents a $58 million reduction from the previous year, Garland said.

Garland said an official decision on the funding has not been made but Coquina Coast is unlikely to receive any money in the district's next fiscal year, starting in October.

Garland added that the governing board is expected to make a decision over the next several weeks as it works on the budget for next year.

"We are looking at all the projects that the district has been partnering with other agencies and deciding which ones we can and can't do," Garland said.

Despite the expected loss of state money and the certain departure of Leesburg, Coquina Coast planners this week continued working on finding a location to build the plant. Planners outlined several large areas of between 200 to 400 acres each in Flagler County where they might find a suitable 25 to 50 acre site for the desal plant.

Here are the areas under consideration:

· Mostly within U.S. 1, Seminole Woods Parkway and State Road 100.

· Belle Terre Parkway on the west, roughly John Anderson Highway on the east, State Road 100 on the south and up to a line about even with Royal Palms Parkway on the north.

· Along the east side of Interstate 95 and south of State Road 100.

· South of State Road 100 between John Anderson and the Intracoastal Waterway.

· Between U.S. 1 and the railroad tracks north of Palm Coast Parkway.

· East of Interstate 95 beginning at the northern reaches of Old Kings Road.

· West side of the Intracoastal Waterway just south of Palm Coast Parkway.

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