ECUA is pleased to announce that the Pensacola Beach Reclaimed Water Main Project is moving forward and installation work on the $2.5M project has resumed after the heaviest months of the beach tourist season. The project was interrupted last December to allow for the accommodation of previously unidentified underground utilities (power and fiber optic) that impeded the installation of pipe in that section.

On September 23, ECUA’s contractor Chavers Construction, began work to install a 16-inch distribution main and a 12-inch transmission main for reclaimed water, from Casino Beach to Avenida 10. Work has now progressed such that beginning on November 19, the eastbound lanes of Via de Luna will be closed to traffic and the westbound lanes will be used for eastbound and westbound traffic. (See map).

In 2011, ECUA introduced reclaimed water for the Santa Rosa Island Authority Reuse Irrigation system along Via de Luna. The end goal of this project is to provide reclaimed water to a wider customer base on Pensacola Beach for irrigation purposes. The reuse program conserves valuable drinking water and reduces the surface water discharge from the Pensacola Beach treatment plant to Pensacola Bay. In 2018, ECUA constructed a new ground storage tank through funding from the Northwest Florida Water Management District. The $947,000 grant allowed for the expansion of the ECUA’s reclaimed water system on Pensacola Beach with the addition of a 2.5-million-gallon storage tank. While awaiting funding and the construction of the reclaimed water main, the 2.5-million-gallon storage tank has been used as a storage tank for potable water. In 2020, an additional $4.2 Million Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) grant was awarded to ECUA to aid in the further expansion of the reclaimed water system to complete transmission and distribution pipelines identified in ECUA’s Reclaimed Water Master Plan.

This phase of the project is expected to take six months and be completed in early March before the Spring Break season begins. A second project to construct a transmission main from Casino Beach to the 2.5-million-gallon storage tank is anticipated to begin in the Fall of 2025.

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