Water Treatment and Distribution
The City’s Water Utilities Department provides potable drinking water, collection of wastewater and stormwater throughout the City and service areas. The water division operates and maintains a 17.4 MGD water treatment plant that combines lime softened and reverse osmosis treated water that is distributed through a 168 mile watermain piping system to customers. This division also maintains over 1,100 fire hydrants in the system throughout the service area.
Sewer Collection and Transmission
The sewer division collects wastewater from customers in a 125 mile gravity and pressure pipe system with 33 city owned and maintained wastewater pump stations and several private pump stations. The sewer division also operates and maintains a regional Master Pump Station that collects wastewater from Lake Worth Beach, Lantana, Atlantis, Manalapan, South Palm Beach, Palm Beach State College, Lake Clarke Shores, and Palm Springs and sends it to the East Central Regional Water Reclamation Facility for treatment.
Stormwater
The storm division collects and maintains stormwater throughout the City in stormwater collection system with 46 outfalls to the Lake Worth lagoon.
The City is a joint permittee of the Palm Beach County Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. This permit allows a permittee to discharge stormwater from its stormwater collection and conveyance system into a receiving water owned by the state and/or federal government. For more information on the permit, visit www.pbco-npdes.org
Drinking Water Infrastructure Improvements
The City is nearing completion of a 6-year program to replace over 17 miles of 2-inch corroded galvanized steel watermain piping with larger 4- and 6-inch piping designed for long term use. The Water Utilities Department has applied for and acquired Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) loans for the construction of this program, which is expected to be complete by 2021.
The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Program recently executed a $3,623,940 Drinking Water State Revolving Fund loan, of which a portion was awarded as principal forgiveness and will not need to be repaid, to assist the City of Lake Worth’s 2-inch watermain replacement project phase 5 & 6 construction. Over 17 miles of 2-inch corroded water pipes will be fixed by replacing with them with larger 4- and 6-inch piping designed for long-term use. This will provide better quality water to approximately 12,000 residences. It is the final phase of a six phase project expected to be completed by 2022 with a total estimated project cost of $14.8M. The first phase is complete and have been completed, these projects were funded with loans through this program as well.
Florida’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) is administered by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) with joint funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the State of Florida. DWSRF programs operate around the country to provide states and communities the resources necessary to maintain and improve the infrastructure that protects our valuable water resources nationwide. Florida’s DWSRF program has awarded more than $273 million in funding for 62 for drinking water improvement projects during the past five years for a total of $925 million in loan funds since its inception in 1998. The program provides low-interest loans to eligible entities for planning, designing and constructing water pollution control facilities.