Greg Veliz, executive director for the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about their projects.
Governor Ron DeSantis attended the grand opening of the reverse osmosis plant on Stock Island recently.
Veliz said, “We felt extremely honored that that the governor chose to come down and he did bring us the check to see the job full circle, and actually pumping water is pretty neat. I mean, in the political world or in the public sector, seldom do people take on a project of that size and then be able to see it through to the end and he was able to do that, and he agreed to come down and I think it shows the importance of what we’ve done out there.”
The plant will be invaluable for the flow of water.
Veliz said, “It shows the ever changing needs of what we have every day. When we first conceptualized this whole thing, we thought it would be only for emergencies, much like the one runs now, only for emergencies. From a maintenance standpoint, we found benefit into running it more often, and also now our needs are greater, so we’re trying to reduce our dependency on the aquifer, and we’re running at a million gallons a day and alternating between the four trains that each produce a million gallons a day. We’ll alternate and make sure they’re all running properly and that they’re contributing to the system full time, 24 hours a day, and not just in emergencies, which was what we had planned in the very beginning.”
Was the governor impressed?
Veliz said, “He was, as were the governmental agencies in Tallahassee. This was their marquee project, and they were really proud of it. I think in his remarks, he mentioned the one that we’re building up in in Crawl Key. I think that was huge. We wanted to bring it to his attention and he brought it up in his remarks, so they’re aware of the fact that we’re building another one. They’re proud of the one that we put here now. So hopefully that’ll get us some support as we move forward with that project up in Crawl Key.”
Could the state budget be an issue?
Veliz said, “We’re obviously concerned. We’re hearing not good things out of Tallahassee. That very few things that have gotten support in the past may not get support this year, and I know I upset a lot of people when I say this, but no one’s ever given me an argument to the contrary, if we don’t work, nothing works. So whatever they decide to fund, whether it’s a park, a highway, an airport or whatever, it doesn’t work unless the aqueduct works. So I think that’s the basic sustenance of life and I think whether it’s your education and all are important. I’m not downplaying any of those. What I’m saying is, if we shut down, they shut down. So I think everyone needs to take that into account when we start doling out money, and I’ve said that even from a project standpoint, when we plan big projects, there has to be a part in there for infrastructure.”
There were repairs made to two valves around Pearl Avenue in Key West recently.
Veliz said, “You’ll see that every day. I mean, we have either a small break in a distribution, we’ve got 616 miles of distribution line, so you’re going to see breaks. And then there’s daily maintenance. We have to shut down and replace a valve, and we are actively out there trying to shut down a valve, trying to replace all of our valves. It’s a monumental task, and we’ve got a crew dedicated just to that. What happens is, you go out at night, in the middle of the night, you have a leak, and you can’t shut down because the valve doesn’t work. So then you have to expand and expand and expand your footprint. Until now you’ve eliminated 100 homes instead of the four that it affected. I think with this valve project, it’s going to make future repairs far easier. That’s the plan anyway.”
The aqueduct project in Tavernier has caused some traffic issues, but the aqueduct authority has been very responsive to try to minimize any inconvenience.
Veliz said, “It hasn’t been scaled back. We’re just finishing faster than we had anticipated. Everybody’s idea of trying to minimize impact is different, and if you’re stuck in the traffic, we have not done enough. In the very beginning of this project, when we first started in Islamorada, we told everybody this was going to be life altering, and it was going to alter your everyday tasks. We got lucky in Islamorada and then we got lucky in Windy Key, and I think we got a little comfortable with getting lucky, and then all of a sudden, here’s this latest iteration of what we’re doing and it was everything we expected it to be in the very beginning. We didn’t get lucky on this one and there’s going to be some in the future that we don’t get lucky on either. Now we’ve taken that project from up by Coral Shores High School, and we’ve moved it down to Knights Key. It doesn’t look like it’s going to impact traffic very much there. So we’re going to keep moving. Like I said, this isn’t optional. There will be no traffic if there is no water, I can assure you. I’m trying to get through 20% of it, which would be 226 miles. It’s slow going. It’s very expensive, and with money drying up in Tallahassee, and if funding sources start to dry up, that’s the only thing that’s going to impact us fixing this line. I understand people are mad. They can be mad at me. It can get personal. They can be personal. But I’m going to fix that line. I don’t have an option. It’s a very simple end to what we’re doing. We have to get you water, and we have to replace this line to do so. So I apologize. It sucks, I know, but we’ve got to get it done.”
The money for the project isn’t a sure thing year to year.
Veliz said, “When we first started here, we had one person that was working on grants part time. We now have three people working full time with an outside firm just to identify grants, get applications in, make the commitment and follow them through. We’re having an enormous amount of success. Now, in many cases, that only covers 50% which reduces your cost by half. You still have to come up with that other half, and then you have the commitment to the project, but the more grants that we get, the more projects we can do. Unfortunately, the more traffic we can impact, but the safer we are from a water standpoint.”
The governor on Thursday signed the Florida Farm Bill, which would ban the use of any additive in the public water system that does not meet the new definition of water quality additive.
Veliz explained, “We’re going to remove fluoride. There’s no really cost impact. We had gone out and we had taken some public sampling on a very, very small scale, and it was about 50/50, then it got political and as all of our posts have that we’ve put out, we didn’t put out comments because we didn’t want to get into all that. Everybody’s mad at someone, and they’re either mad or they’re happy, and I don’t want to get in the middle of that. We have a law to adhere to, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Michael Stapleford of KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM said, “Water is critical, and the job that you do is critical to all of us here in the Keys. We appreciate your diligence every day.”
Veliz said, “Thank you for helping us get our messaging out. There’s never enough avenues to do so and every time we get an opportunity like this, we like to apologize to those that we are affecting negatively and understand that there is a method to our madness, and we are moving towards an end.”
Stapleford said, “We certainly want to continue to provide that platform from Key West to Miami here for you, and I apologize that you feel you need to apologize just for doing your job, but thank you for doing that job.”