Florida Public Service Commissioners heard Tuesday evening from Central Floridians who would be impacted by the Sunshine Water Services Company’s pending request to increase customers’ monthly rates for water and wastewater.
If the higher rates are approved, the typical Sunshine customer would pay nearly 23% more for water and about 16% more for wastewater, according to the private utility’s request filed with the PSC earlier this year. The rate increases would impact customers in Lake, Marion, Orange, Polk and Seminole Counties, along with five other Florida counties.
Meanwhile, the utility already struggles to adequately and consistently provide water and wastewater services to many customers, according to some who spoke at Tuesday’s service hearing in Altamonte Springs.
“We have a leaky system. It’s 50 years old,” said Gabbie Milch, who lives in the Wekiva Hunt Club community in Seminole County.
“Our system was built early on, and they've added many things to it, and have not necessarily — from my understanding, over the last 20 years that I've been monitoring the system — have not done sufficient repairs,” Milch said.
The Wekiva Hunt Club’s wastewater treatment plant, operated by Sunshine (previously named Utilities Inc. of Florida), has repeatedly been cited for noncompliance, including for unauthorized sewage discharges, according to data stored by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Incident/malfunction reports for the facility date back to at least 2010.
“The rates for customers like me should also include greater safety and human health considerations,” Milch said.
The utility’s customers in some parts of Seminole County often complain of sewage seeping out from lift stations, according to Stuart Dropkin of Sweetwater Oaks. More than a million gallons of raw sewage spilled into Sweetwater Creek on October 8, 2019, according to a consent order issued by FDEP in 2020.
In 2022, Seminole County commissioners discussed the idea of trying to take over Sunshine Water Services in light of years of customer complaints about frequent sewage spills and sharp rate increases, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
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Dropkin also said he is concerned about new information about PFAS in the area’s drinking water, adding he hopes that any rate increases could help fund solutions.
“If these increases are given to [Sunshine], I would hope that they would be targeted to do this type of remediation to protect us, so that we don't get cancer as we get older,” Dropkin said.
A technical hearing is the next required step after this week’s service hearings, where people are weighing in on Sunshine’s quality of service and the rate setting process. Following the technical hearing, Commissioners will decide whether or not to grant Sunshine’s request; per PSC, that decision will come early next year.
