By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

            The Suwannee River Water Management District’s Governing Board will be asked on May 9 to recommend state funding for a water and wastewater utility that would connect Bronson, Otter Creek, and Cedar Key.

            Bronson Mayor Robert Partin said it is his understanding an application for a $115 million state grant has been submitted to SRWMD for consideration.

            An April 24 letter from SRWMD’s projects team said the district board will consider recommending Florida Department of Environmental Protection Alternative Water Supply funding for the project.

            District staff reviewed the application and found it worthy of consideration by its board.

            SRWMD did not return phone calls when asked for additional information about the project.

            The Waccasassa Water and Wastewater Cooperative, the local government utility that would operate the 33-mile-long water and wastewater utility, doesn’t exist yet as a government agency.

            It remains a group of community-elected leaders, scientists, and engineers working toward a common goal of winning state approval for grants to fund the utility.

            Bronson Town Manager Susan Beaudet said one of the things the state wants local governments to do is name a board of directors for the cooperative and establish it as a legal entity.

            She said the working group of local officials that created the cooperative on paper actually doesn’t have a name of its own, either. The key figures are the Partin, Otter Creek Mayor Russell Meeks Sr., Cedar Key Mayor Heath Davis, the Cedar Key Water and Sewer District, and Levy County Commissioner John Meeks. The group will meet again Monday, May 8th, at noon at the Dogan Cobb Municipal Building in Bronson. The meeting is open to the public.

            Partin said he has heard that the total cost of the project could run as high as $300 million to $400 million, but he said that’s pure speculation. No one really knows at this point.

            “In the long run, yes, I can probably see that, but I can tell you that’s just speculation,” he said. “The only thing I can tell you is the $115 million.”

            The mayor said he believes the cooperative will benefit Bronson.

            He cited one example. The Bronson Town Council recently postponed a decision on adopting a $12,000-plus capacity fee for all new homes. A capacity fee is intended to collect revenue from builders to defray the future cost of expanding the town’s water and sewer plant capacity as economic growth occurs. Bronson’s proposed capacity fee is higher than neighboring communities, in part due to the small size of the town. One builder told the town council he couldn’t afford to add $12,000 of cost to his homes without pricing himself out of the Bronson market.

            Partin said most of that proposed $12,000 capacity fee would go away if the cooperative was in place. He said the cooperative would have the resources and expertise to help address new growth and utility capacity in the three communities as they occur.

            “My hope is we will be able to complete our sewer system for the whole town of Bronson, but this is something we probably could never do unless we had something like this cooperative. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Partin said.

            He said the cooperative is a difficult project to sell to the public because people don’t understand its value. He said one man confronted him with an allegation that the cooperative would dry up Bronson’s water supply just like California by pulling too much water from the aquifer. The well field for the cooperative would be in the Bronson area.

            Partin said people have a misconception about how much water would be taken out of the ground by the cooperative. Partin said the amount of water to supply the three communities would be less than a single pivot irrigation system on a farm field in Levy County.

            The mayor pointed out that the cooperative project isn’t the first time Bronson and other communities have sought funding from the state. He noted that Bronson’s new fire station was constructed with state money. He said the town could never have built the station with local funding alone.

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Town of Bronson Regular Meeting April 24, 2023; Posted April 29, 2023