City of Bradenton Wastewater Facility Faces Challenges Following Last Year's Hurricanes

BRADENTON — The City of Bradenton has reported a wastewater release that led to 450,000 gallons of partially treated wastewater being bypassed from the city’s reclamation facility into local stormwater drains.

The event occurred on Jan. 10 and 11 at the city’s water reclamation facility located at the corner of 17th Avenue West and South Tamiami Trail. The incident was the first bypass of significant volume since the area endured multiple severe storms last year.

According to the Public Notice of Pollution submitted to FDEP, the bypass occurred after the facility experienced a “solids overload.” While 1,000 gallons were spilled on facility grounds—some of which was recovered with vac trucks—450,000 bypassed gallons of partially treated sewage exited through three storm drains to the Manatee River.

In August, city officials reported that partially treated and untreated sewage spills totaling 64 million gallons occurred due to Hurricane Debby’s rainfall overloading its system. 

In the two months following Debby, Hurricanes Helene and Milton also overwhelmed the city’s utility infrastructure, leading to the release of at least another 72 million gallons of wastewater into the Manatee River.

City officials largely point to aging infrastructure as the cause of the numerous spills over several years but have also acknowledged in reports to FDEP that in some cases—not related to weather events—human error has also been to blame.

However, as explained to TBT by Bradenton City Administrator Rob Perry, the bypass event that occurred last week was a failure due to ongoing issues wrought by the three hurricanes that recently impacted Manatee County. 

“The Waste Water Treatment Facility has been dealing with biochemical and mechanical processing issues since the historical events and volumes associated with the storms last year,” Perry told TBT by email.

While wastewater typically consists of any water flushed down toilets or drains, including that from industrial or manufacturing facilities, excess stormwater can increase the flow rate to a wastewater treatment facility during periods of intense rainfall. This increased flow rate can potentially exceed a facility's treatment capacity, which can result in the plant experiencing performance issues with its treatment processes. 

Perry says the January bypass involved the plant “clarifiers,” which are the second phase of the city’s wastewater treatment process. These clarifiers haven’t been fully functioning since the storms, he said.

“Abnormally high and unacceptable blankets of dissolved solids developed, which are typically separated and broken down in this phase of treatment,” Perry detailed. “Those blankets clogged filters and prevented wastewater flow into the next process in this phase of treatment.”

That next process is called “pressing,” said Perry.

“The dissolved solids are separated, broken down, decontaminated, dewatered, and then compacted through a mechanical equipment process known as pressing,” he continued.

These compacted wastes—referred to as “cakes“—are then transported off-site to an FDEP-approved processing site out east that repurposes the byproduct through a specialized process into “fertilizer-type products.”

“This is how the majority of wastewater plants in the US operate," Perry explained.

But the inflow and volume of waters from the three recent hurricanes impacted both the mechanical and biochemical processes at the city’s plant, Perry says, and it's a challenge the city continues to actively address.

On the biochemical side of the equation, high inflows during the storms essentially "washed away" the delicate population of microorganisms used by the system to digest the sewage solids. These microbes are integral to the wastewater treatment process and reestablishing (or re-seeding) the microbes has proven challenging. 

Reestablishing the cultural environment ("culture medium") for a sustained and thriving microbial "community" requires reestablishing and maintaining the delicate balance of nutrient levels and other conditions, such as temperature, pH, and even oxygen levels required by the type of microbe being cultured. 

“We have been implementing many measures, techniques, and processes to correct this,” he said, adding that while workers continue to address the setbacks caused by the storms, “New waste is perpetually entering the plant.”

He noted that while the city hasn’t had a large bypass since the storms until now, other issues have arisen that needed addressing.

In the aftermath of the storms, the city experienced problems with the facility’s pressing equipment, ultimately leading to the city having to lease new pressing equipment.

The city has contracted with an engineering and environmental consulting firm, Jacobs, which is assisting the city in addressing facility challenges and needed improvement, including by providing additional staff training.

“The city is attempting to repair a vast wastewater system that was built during the city’s historical inception beginning more than 125 years ago,” Perry said. “With certain parts of the city being aged and older and certain parts being newer, we must evaluate the issues of aged infrastructure accordingly.”

It's been a bumpy road for the City of Bradenton’s wastewater facility for almost the last decade with hundreds of millions of gallons of partially treated—and sometimes untreated—wastewater reportedly being discharged into the Manatee River since 2017.

Local environmental advocacy group Suncoast Waterkeeper filed a lawsuit against the city over its repeated wastewater pollution incidents, and in 2022, the city acknowledged the failures and entered a settlement agreement with the nonprofit organization. 

As part of the settlement, the city agreed to make significant improvements to its wastewater infrastructure.

In a video message shared on Facebook in Sept. 2024, Suncoast Waterkeeper Founder and Environmental Attorney Justin Bloom addressed how the City of Bradenton was progressing with infrastructure improvements and in its efforts toward compliance with the Clean Water Act.

In the video, Bloom credits the city with quickly acknowledging the historic problems with its utility infrastructure, adding, “We are over a year into our settlement and (the City of Bradenton) has done a lot of work. They’re committed to fixing the problems, but they’ve also had some setbacks.”

The “setbacks” Bloom was referring to were the impacts of Hurricane Debby and the millions of gallons discharged during and after the storm. 

“The City of Bradenton needs to do a lot of work to fix their system and make it comply with the law,” Bloom said in the video message.

While speaking to TBT, City Administrator Perry said the city is committed to doing just that.

“We have dedicated nearly $75 million to infrastructure repair, capital repair, and replacement efforts through a series of utility funds, state loans, and federal state grants,” Perry said. “We anticipate further and continuous investment of $100 million for complete modernization of our water utility over the next 3-4 years.”

The city’s wastewater system has two components: the collection system and two wastewater treatment plants. The collection system alone consists of 275 miles of sewer pipe, 4,200 manholes, and 65 lift/pump stations, said Perry. 

Under the city council's directive and City of Bradenton Mayor Gene Brown, the city has launched its utility infrastructure improvement initiative, the “Face it and Fix It” campaign.

A brochure provided by the city outlines the challenges and commitments of the city in its efforts to rebuild and repair its wastewater collection and water treatment facilities.

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