SEBASTIAN — After more than a year of studying the feasibility of extending sewer service to a mostly commercial area of northern Sebastian, the Board of County Commissioners voted Tuesday to approve a $155,000 work order to design the $2 million first phase of the project.
Utilities Director Vincent Burke informed commissioners that obtaining grant funding, which would serve 213 Equivalent Residential Units (ERUs), is “critical in order to move the project to the construction phase.”
“Staff feels that having a shovel-ready project may increase the likelihood of securing grants,” Burke wrote in a memo to commissioners.
Concern over septic tanks leaching nutrients into the Indian River Lagoon has put the expansion of the county sewer system, especially to areas near the waterfront, on the front burner.
Engineers determined that about 60 percent of those ERUs were in the unincorporated county and 40 percent were in the City of Sebastian.
The County is proposing an interlocal agreement for the project, in which Sebastian would pay $62,088 or 40 percent of the planning costs to the civil engineering firm of Masteller & Moler and the County would pay $93,132 or 60 percent.
Commissioner Wesley Davis asked Burke if any of the streets would have to be torn up, as Sebastian has been working to pave and improve its so-called “Presidential streets” in the part of town from Harrison Street at the edge of Riverview Park north to Jackson Street at the entrance to Wal-Mart.
Burke said some unearthing of streets would need to be done to install the centralized, gravity-sewer system, but that the County would coordinate with Sebastian’s efforts with regard to timing of the work to minimize disruption.