The city of Deerfield Beach, Fla., has given up on dumping leftovers from a water plant into the Hillsboro Canal after a judge refused to overrule a hearing officer who had blocked the plan.
City officials received a permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection but failed to sway Broward County officials, who said they were worried about pollution.
Dumping into the Hillsboro Canal would have cost $1.9 million, compared with $4.8 million to pump the concentrate deep into the ground, according to the city's consulting firm Camp, Dresser & McKee.
City officials had been hoping to release into the canal a concentrated mixture of liquid, salt and other minerals left over from creating drinking water. The concentrate will be generated by a reverse osmosis process set to begin in June at the city's water plant on Goolsby Boulevard.
In July, DeerfieldBeach was denied approval to discharge the concentrate by both the county and a hearing officer. The city appealed, but a judge denied the appeal on Feb. 18.
Until the deep well is built, which will take about two years, the city will send the concentrate to the county's North Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant, City Manager Larry Deetjen said.
Meanwhile, Boca Raton expects to receive state approval by the end of the week to dispose of its own water plant concentrate into the Atlantic Ocean, Boca Raton Utility Director Mike Woika said.
Boca Raton resident Carl Jacobs doesn't think that's fair to Deerfield Beach.
"We're going to dump 6 million gallons of the same stuff in the ocean and it's going to float down to Deerfield," he noted.
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
