The City of St. Petersburg is moving forward with a multi-million-dollar overhaul of its only drinking water facility, aiming to modernize the nearly century-old Cosme Water Treatment Plant and safeguard service for more than 300,000 residents.
WATCH: St. Petersburg’s only water treatment plant set for major upgrades
Wednesday night, the city hosted a meeting to tell the public about the improvements to the plant’s aging infrastructure. The plant was initially built back in 1930.
The upgrades include constructing a new building to house operations and controls, installing new emergency backup generators, replacing the existing pump station with a new high-service pump station, and building a new water blending facility.
“This is a major upgrade to the facility. It’s going to improve the pumping capacity and efficiency of the plant, improve the electronic controls at the plant, and optimize how we deliver water,” said John Palenchar, City of St. Petersburg's water resources director.
The construction on this project is expected to begin in late 2026. One of the people who attended tonight’s meeting was Hamid Salahutdin, a homeowner who’s been fighting with the city for nearly a decade.
This is after he found out his house was built on a city utility easement. That easement was not mentioned on his deed, and it has two large water transmission lines running through it. This all involves a record-keeping mishap that happened 95 years ago.
“These transmission lines are, like I said, 100 years old, the life expectancy of a water transmission line is like 55 years,” said Salahutdin.
Last month, I-Team investigator Adam Walser discovered there are fears that those water mains could break. According to a City of St. Pete utility report, there was recently a close call when a contractor installing a sewer line for a new subdivision came within unauthorized proximity to the city’s water transmission mains.
The city council approved $1.9 million to hire a contractor to stabilize the water transmission mains, assess if further damage has occurred, and restore the site to its original condition.
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