Vero Beach just passed the halfway mark in completion of its innovative STEP sewer system within city limits, and is now getting bids to expand the system to south beach neighborhoods outside the city limits where it provides water service.

The city provides water service to the island south to the St. Lucie County line as well as north to the town of Indian River Shores.

“We will start in the Ocean Ridge neighborhood,” said utilities director Rob Bolton. “I want to get that under contract this fiscal year and would like to complete construction in all the neighborhoods that need to be hooked up in the next three to four years, well ahead of the 2030 state deadline.”

STEP systems capture sewage from households and businesses with septic tanks, channeling the effluent to the city wastewater treatment plant. Using small bore pipes, they cost less than half the cost to install traditional gravity sewers and don’t require tearing up streets or wrecking yards, sparing the roots of the island’s iconic oak trees.

Both the state and city have established deadlines for septic systems to be hooked up to the main sewer system, because old septic systems leak human waste that contaminates groundwater and ends up in the Indian River Lagoon.

The nitrogen in feces and urine – which is a product of protein breakdown in the body – feeds destructive algae blooms in the lagoon, leading to the loss of seagrass, fish kills, and death and disease among marine mammals such as bottlenose dolphins and West Indies manatees.

Phosphorous, cleaning products, pharmaceutical residue and other chemicals in human waste also harm the lagoon ecosystem.

“There are about 1,500 septic systems in the city limits,” Bolton told Vero Beach 3296, “including 900 on the island and 600 on the mainland. Outside the city limits, in the areas where we provide water service, it is the opposite – 600 systems on the island about 900 on the mainland.”

When all those are hooked up to the city sewer system, it will remove about 14,000 pounds of nitrogen from the environment each year, along with other harmful pollutants.

When STEP infrastructure is installed in a subdivision, the city or its contractors run 2-inch polyethylene pipes from existing sewer pipes along the neighborhood streets.

Once those are in place, smaller lateral pipes go underground into individual lots, connecting to existing septic systems via an additional tank with a pump. When installation is complete, liquid waste called effluent is pumped through the new pipes into the city sewer network.

Ocean Ridge, a 60-home subdivision directly across A1A from St. Edward’s School, is a typical example. A schematic diagram provided by Bolton shows two, 2-inch main lines running from an existing sewer line along the highway, entering the subdivision at its north and south boundaries.

From there, the pipes go along all the streets, with dead-end pipes stubbed into cul-de-sacs, all run underground using a boring machine without the need to dig trenches.

“We are using two lines so that if one is damaged the system will still work,” Bolton said.

STEP is a remarkably cost-effective system for the city. Bolton said the main infrastructure of the system within the city limits cost just $1.5 million, including a million in city money and $500,000 in grants. That work was completed on the island in 2017 and on the mainland in 2018.

Bolton estimates the cost of extending the system where it is needed throughout the city’s expansive water service area will be between $3 million and $5 million.

“I know it will be at least twice as much as the initial cost, and we hope to get it done for that, but it could end up being $4 or $5 million,” he said.

Despite its cost effectiveness, the system has been complicated to install citywide because neighborhoods on septic are scattered randomly across the municipality in dozens of oddly configured patches.

“There is no rhyme or reason to it sometimes,” said Bolton. “There will be sewers on one street in a neighborhood but not on the next one.”

Bolton said the earliest sewers on the mainland were installed in the 1920s, with the bulk of them going in during a burst of infrastructure construction in the 1950s.

“After those lines went in, new subdivisions were required to connect to the system, but they never really went back and retrofitted the neighborhoods with septic systems,” Bolton said.

“Right after the Clean Water Act in 1972, the city did a first phase gravity sewer program on the island. They did most of the commercial district and other areas but when it got to the second phase, it all kind of fell apart.”

Many island subdivisions were built prior to the 1970s and due to budget constraints or resistance from residents who did not want their neighborhoods dug up or didn’t want to pay to connect to the sewer system, some areas continued to use septic systems.

The main septic sections on the island where STEP is being installed are Bethal Creek, the Live Oak subdivision, which occupies much of Central Beach north of Beachland Boulevard, Riomar and South Beach within the city limits.

More than half of the homes in those neighborhoods have had step systems installed and the rest are slated to be hooked up prior to the city’s 2028 deadline, which was established to allow some margin of error for people slow to comply ahead of the state deadline.

Also on the island, there are about 160 septic systems in Indian River Shores and another 400 plus in subdivisions south of the city limits, according to Bolton.

He said systems have been designed for many of the south island subdivisions, which will be installed neighborhood by neighborhood, using smaller contractors to save money.

“We will get it done for half what it would cost if we hired one big contractor to come in with a bunch of subs and do it all under one contract,” Bolton said.

On the mainland, areas still on septic where STEP is being installed include the country club neighborhood, which was laid in the 1920s, downtown, also subdivided in the 1920s or earlier, and two dozen other jigsaw puzzle-like sections scattered across the city.

Property owners pay the cost of installation and equipment used on their property, but the city owns and maintains the equipment, which is part of city infrastructure.

Cost of the systems vary from small houses to large homes, duplexes, apartment buildings, and commercial structures that require more pipe and larger or additional tanks and pumps, but Bolton said the average cost for a three-bedroom, two-bath house on the mainland is $15,000. The average cost on the island, where homes and lots may be larger and landscaping may complicate the installation, the average cost is $17,000.

That is a chunk of change but less than the cost of the new nutrient-reducing septic systems required by the state for properties that don’t have access to sewer hookup.

For homeowners who need financial assistance to make the mandatory hookup to STEP, the Clean Water Coalition of Indian River County has an outstanding assistance program.

Working with the city and Economic Opportunity Council, using funds from Indian River Land Trust and the Indian River Lagoon national Estuary Program, CWC has a streamlined process to pay two thirds of the cost for homeowners who meet program criteria.

To participate in the program, a home must be owner-occupied with a homestead exemption and a household income less than four times the federal poverty level.

That means a family of two making less than $84,000 or a family of four making less than $128,000 are eligible for assistance.

Under the program, homeowners have to pay an initial fee of $540 and then nine more payments the same amount over the next nine or10 years, for a total cost of $5,400.

Once the system is installed, all sewer customers will pay a monthly utility bill, usually between $30 and $50 a month, but they won’t be responsible for septic tank pump-outs of other maintenance, which will be handled by the city.

When complete, the STEP system initiative will keep more than seven tons of nitrogen out of the lagoon each year and net the city about $1.5 million in annual revenue from 3,000 new sewer customers – money that will come in handy as the city builds and operates its new $164-million wastewater treatment plant.