JEA has been awarded a $20 million grant from the Florida Department of Commerce to repair infrastructure at the former Normandy Village Utility Co-op Inc., Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Dec. 18.
The grant comes after JEA staff informed the city-owned utility’s board that it faced $50 million to $60 million in costs to serve NVU’s customers after the co-op filed a notice of abandonment of its operations in July.
NVU, which was based along Normandy Boulevard near Interstate 295, provided water and wastewater services to about 1,325 customers, according to JEA.
In its notice of abandonment, which it filed to the Florida Public Service Commission and Mayor Donna Deegan’s office, Normandy Village said it was operating at a net loss and that a majority of its board believed the not-for-profit co-op was “unlikely to remain operational for much longer.”
In September, the 4th Judicial Circuit Court appointed JEA in receivership of the co-op.
In a Dec. 18 news release, JEA Managing Director and CEO Vickie Cavey expressed support to DeSantis and Department of Commerce Secretary Alex Kelly for assisting JEA.
“This grant will go a long way toward helping us support critical infrastructure and safeguard public health and the environment,” Cavey said in the release.
The grant comes through the Department of Commerce’s Rebuild Florida Infrastructure Repair Program, which distributes U.S. Housing and Urban Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds to help local governments rebuild resilient infrastructure, according to the JEA release.
JEA has identified issues in failing mains, compromised manholes and a wastewater treatment facility that is no longer viable for safe rehabilitation.
JEA staff said in September that it hoped to receive a $40 million grant. Without that funding, staff said, costs could be borne by ratepayers.
“This grant will allow us to make critical repairs to wastewater pipes and facility infrastructure sooner than we would have otherwise. We will prioritize other work as our capital project funding allows,” a JEA spokesperson Karen McAllister said Dec. 18 when asked if JEA would increase rates after receiving half of the grant money it had sought.
Rob Zammataro, JEA’s chief water systems officer, said in September that an analysis of NVU’s system showed it was antiquated and had undergone “little to no investment” since being built in 1957.
The NVU water treatment system includes a water treatment plant and water mains. The wastewater treatment system includes a wastewater treatment plant, sewer mains and manholes, and pump stations.
JEA said it will take the NVU wastewater treatment plant offline eventually, but will maintain it in the short term to continue servicing former NVU customers.
The wastewater plant suffered from rainwater infiltration that overloaded the system, Zammataro said. During rain events, the system would take in 1 million gallons of water, well above the 250,000- to 300,000-gallon load the system was built to treat.
Because of the infiltration, Zammataro said, JEA had environmental regulation concerns with the wastewater plant, which will keep JEA from connecting its system to the NVU wastewater plant. JEA will fix the NVU issues before beginning to connect the two systems.
NVU customers already received electric service through JEA.
According to the notice of abandonment, the NVU board was mostly composed of its users. The notice said that after the recent death of the organization’s president, Dorothy Letien, a majority of NVU’s board examined its financial situation and found expenses were exceeding revenue.
NVU customers, primarily residential users, have complained about the utility. In a video shown to the JEA board, customers said they didn’t drink NVU water and that they paid high rates for poor service.