Sanford works to fix overflow issues at wastewater plant

SANFORD – Sanford officials say they have a fix in the works to stop a wastewater treatment plant from overflowing into Lake Monroe.

Earlier in January, the plant located at Seminole Boulevard overflowed twice, spilling millions of gallons into the lake. It led to warning signs being installed telling people to not swim in the water or fish.

A new system upgrade is expected to be done by the end of February that should prevent another overflow.

“We are in the middle of a $4.6 million construction to add new disc filters that are rated at 18 million gallons,” said Sanford Utility Plant manager Richard Casella. “Then we will have the old filters retrofitted, so basically this never should happen again.”

The overflow from the most recent incident on Jan. 20 came to a stop at about 2 a.m.

Casella said cold weather likely caused the plant’s reject ponds to take on too much untreated water.