New St. Petersburg grants means lower utility rate increase for customers

Share
St. Pete cityscape
Downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. By Seán Kinane/WMNF News (April, 2016).

Listen:

St Petersburg was awarded over 20 million dollars from the state towards infrastructure improvements, and this means lower-than-expected utility rates for St. Pete residents in the future.

The funding is from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. It’s going towards mitigating flooding and improving St. Pete’s utility service.

Claude Tankersley is the Public Works Administrator for the City of St. Petersburg.

“We’re basically getting a fifty fifty grant. So, fifty percent of the funding from the project will be coming from our utility rates, and fifty percent will be coming from these grants.”

And this means slower rate increases for St. Pete utility customers in the future.

“We anticipate it will allow us not to raise utility rates in fiscal years 25 and 26 as much as we would have if we had to fund it completely ourselves.”

Approximately 11.5 million dollars will be used to mitigate stormwater flooding in South St. Pete.

“This is a really important area, it’s been on our radar since at least 2017 as being one of our top priority stormwater areas”

The area is low-lying and susceptible to severe flooding and property damage.

$8.8 million dollars will be used to improve two wastewater treatment plans.

“These operation buildings that we have in place right now are decades old, probably built back in the 70s, 60s, and so we need to adjust these buildings to account for sea level rise and changes in our rainfall pattern.”

Tankersley predicts construction will start in fiscal year 25-26.

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

student meal
Next school year Hillsborough public schools are offering free meals

Hillsborough Public Schools are offering students free meals for the...

Correspondence Through Poetry. A Mind-Numbing Week.

Father Verses Sons: A Correspondence in Poems by Herbert Gold...

The sound of change: Music’s influence on anti-war and human rights movements

Throughout history, music has served as a powerful catalyst for...

a man in a tye dye shirt talking on a radio microphone
Recreational pot for Florida is on the ballot this fall—let’s talk about it

In four months, Florida voters have the opportunity to vote...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

Follow us on Instagram

Democracy Now!
Player position: