Lisa Gonzalez Moore: Ward 4

At the April 9, 2025, Bradenton City Council meeting, the Council was presented with a proposal for the procurement of the materials and installation of a temporary lift station necessary to take Lift Station 13 offline and prepare it for demolition. This action by the Council is the kickoff to a larger project, possibly one of the largest projects in the City's Public Works water treatment arena in recent history: the Lift Station 3 Expansion Project.

This initiative reflects both my commitment and the Council's to updating and improving the City's capacity at the water treatment facility and preserving our waterways. Like most transformative projects, it comes with some apprehension from City residents.

As I have written before, each Ward within our City faces unique challenges. From a Public Works perspective, Ward 4 happens to have the most lift stations, so Public Works engineers are busy identifying the oldest ones and addressing the issues that come with their age. Lift Station 13 is located on Riverside Drive East and is one of the oldest in the City. It was built in the 1930s as a septic system that discharged directly into the Manatee River. It was plugged in the 1950s but remained adjacent to the river. The collection system leading to Lift Station 13 was also built around the 1930s and is made up of deteriorating clay pipes winding through private yards, not the rights-of-way or streets.

The Lift Station 3 Expansion Project includes these ambitious components:

Step 1. Design and build an expanded-capacity Lift Station 3, located approximately three blocks south of Lift Station 13 on 2nd Avenue East.

Step 2. Design and build an entirely new collection system (a series of underground pipes) using modern materials, placed in the rights-of-way for easier maintenance, and designed to fight gravity and pump sewage to Lift Station 3.

Step 3. Connect the new collection system to the newly expanded Lift Station 3 and demolish old Lift Stations 3 and 13. The new collection system will go a long way in reducing or eliminating the amount of inflow and infiltration (commonly known as "I&I") of stormwater into the collection system, which ultimately reaches the water treatment facility—helping reduce the likelihood of the facility breaching capacity. That is progress.

Recognizing that current best practices call for lift stations to be located away from the water, the City applied for resiliency grants from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) several years ago to help fund the Lift Station 3 Expansion Project. The project is estimated to cost approximately $6 million, but given the rising costs of construction, it is anticipated to increase from that initial projection. The DEP grants awarded to the City will help fund approximately $3 million toward construction expenses.

The cost of this project, however, cannot be totaled in terms of dollars. The residents most adjacent to the Lift Station 3 Expansion Project will face many years of having a temporary lift station operating at flood plain level, or about 11 feet in the air, as well as the inconvenience of roadways under construction and private property torn up to remove the existing, porous, clay pipes meandering their way to old Lift Station 13. At this week's Council meeting, I, Council, and City staff committed to listening when the going gets tough, doing our best to mitigate those unquantifiable costs, and communicating project timelines and progress to residents as the work moves forward.

Many times, the things that most need to be done are the hardest, and the hardest to face. We all care about the health of our regional waterways. But we are one City, one team, and each of us has a part to play in the progress of our Friendly City. When we work together, we can use our collective strength to push through the difficulty towards a brighter future for Bradenton.