Open house on new force main

Pinellas County Utilities is holding an open house meeting to discuss the selected route for a new wastewater force main that is planned for the Seminole area. Residents and business people may stop by the open house any time between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 17, at Terrace Park/Five Towns Auditorium (Magnolia Sun Center), 7950 58th Ave. N, in St. Petersburg.

The selected route has the least impact of the top-ranked routes to busy Park Boulevard, has fewer special crossings, takes advantage of wide rights-of-way along the southern portions of the route, and is the least costly. The 3.4-mile long route goes from the pump station located near the corner of Park and Seminole boulevards eastward on Park Boulevard to 84th Lane, south on 84th Lane to Park Street, then south on Park Street to 62 Avenue North, where it heads east into the South Cross Bayou Water Reclamation Facility. Construction of the new force main is estimated to cost $11.6 million.

The new force main is being built to replace an aging 20-inch wastewater force main in the Seminole/Pinellas Park area. That main is more than 50 years old and has failed twice in the past five years. Four alternate routes for the new force main were evaluated and ranked on a variety of criteria, including public inconvenience, pipeline length, safety, major intersection crossing, permitting requirements, environmental impacts, long-range planning and more. Public input also played a key role, with dozens of attendees providing input on selection criteria at a May 10 public meeting.

The replacement is being done to protect public health, improve wastewater service reliability, improve operations and protect the environment. Construction is expected to begin in late 2017 and be completed by mid-2019.