Dr. Larry Walker – Serious About Service

In Larry Walker’s first six years as an ECUA board member (1988-1994):

• He was at the center of efforts to purge the ECUA of corruption. Ultimately, one board member went to federal prison on a bribery conviction and three other board members were retired from office.
• With the election of a “new” board in 1994, Larry was elected chairman of the Authority and served in that role for five years.
  • During that time, Larry used his leadership role to emphasize basic public service, to broaden ECUA’s recognition of environmental responsibilities, and to strengthen the Authority financially and organizationally.
  • Policy initiatives during those years included:
    • A sewer expansion program
    • A septic-tank abatement program
    • Residential and commercial sanitation (solid waste) programs
    • Water fluoridation
  • Larry led an attempt to establish an ECUA recycling program in 1995, but that effort was unsuccessful.

In Larry’s most recent term (2004-2008), he has served both District 5 and the entire county in the following ways, among others:

• He has contributed to the planning of the new Central Water Reclamation Facility, to the selection of the best possible location of the new plant, and to the rapid completion of this project (now scheduled for early 2010).
  • He insisted on City of Pensacola financial support of this project. The City is committing $20 million to the project—less than it should have been, in Larry’s opinion, but more than it might have been.
  • He insisted on extraordinary safeguards on the fiscal integrity of this $300 million project. The result has been the creation of special watchdog roles, performed by the Malcolm Pernie engineering firm and by the O’Sullivan Creel accounting firm.
• Larry has been adamant that ECUA cooperate with International Paper in a joint project of great importance to IP. In May 2008, he was the only elected official to attend a public hearing and to speak in favor of the issuance of a state permit to IP.
• Larry has been an advocate for abused Allied Waste Services customers in District 5, repeatedly bringing Allied’s performance deficiencies to the attention of the ECUA board, which is supposed to oversee Allied’s performance.
• Larry has been a proactive policy initiator on several fronts.
  • In 2008, he has supported the establishment of an ECUA recycling program but has advocated a conservative approach to this unusually complex issue. He supports offering a recycling program to those who want it, but not a “comprehensive” or “mandatory” program.
  • Larry has initiated an effort to ensure that free public water is available to students in all Escambia County public-school cafeterias. This is not currently the case, and Larry has brought this fact to the attention of both the School District and the ECUA.
• More than any other board member, perhaps, Larry has urged cooperative rather than combative relations with the County Commission in the intergovernmental aspects of solid-waste programs. He has met recently with both the chairman of the County Commission and the County Administrator to improve relations between the ECUA and the County Commission.

The ECUA’s Central Water Reclamation Facility project involves several major components, each of which will be a boon to the Escambia County economy at a time when, as it turns out, it will be sorely needed. Components include the following:

1. Construction of a new wastewater treatment facility north of the Solutia plant
2. Construction of a 25-mile-long raw-sewage pipeline from downtown Government Street to the new plant site
3. Construction of two effluent pipelines between the CWRF and Gulf Power’s Crist Plant
4. Construction of an effluent pipeline from the CWRF to International Paper (IP) at Cantonment
5. Construction, jointly by ECUA and IP, of an effluent pipeline from IP to the Rainwater Tract wetlands south of Mobile Highway at Beulah Road
6. Clearing of hundreds of acres of land and extensive earth moving on the ECUA’s 2,300 acres of land north of Solutia
7. Construction of a half-dozen or more major lift stations to push raw sewage toward the new plant
8. Retrofitting of dozens of existing lift stations in order to redirect their flow
9. Construction of a new office building at Ellyson Park
10. Construction of a new scientific laboratory at Ellyson Park
11. Last but not least, demolition of the Main Street Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Total cost of the CWRF project (or, the Main Street replacement project) is estimated at $300 million. Allmost all of this huge amount of money will be spent in 2008, 2009, and the first few half of 2010. Given the current recession and the threat that this recession may linger and perhaps even worsen, the ECUA CWRF project will be a powerful counterforce in the greater Escambia County community to the current and near-future recession. This huge infusion of money into the local economy could not come at a better time!

On May 29, the ECUA board awarded contracts for four major components of the Central Water Reclamation Facility project. The biggest contract–for $102 million–was for construction of the new treatment plant. Contracts were let for two of three segments of the 25-mile-long main sewage transmission line from downtown to the new plant site, and a fourth contract was awarded for construction of one of several major lift stations.

Happily, one of the four contract winners was a local company, Utility Service Company of Gulf Breeze (Bill Lee, president). The other three contracts were awarded to Alabama and Georgia companies; even so, it is expected that out-of-town general contractors will make extensive use of local subcontractors.

For more information on progress of the CWRF project, including the schedule for the awarding of additional contracts, go to the ECUA website, http://www.ecua.org.

On June 2, Larry Walker visited the site of the future Central Water Reclamation Facility, north of Solutia. Scott Jernigan of Baskerville-Donovan, Inc., took Larry onto the site, and the two of them talked with Bob Adams, subcontractor for the land-clearing work. Sixty acres of the 2,300-acre ECUA property has been cleared of trees, for the most part, Next, about ten feet will be shaved off the top of the highest point to provide a level surface for the plant itself. By locating the treatment plant on the highest site of the property, ECUA will utilize gravity to move effluent from the plant, at an annual savings of $500,000 in energy costs. The new plant will be located about 100 feet above normal stage of the nearby Escambia River, well above flood stage even in the worst hurricane event.

The earth-moving work is progressing smoothly. Meanwhile, the ECUA board awarded four major contracts for construction work on May 29, and work on each of these project components will begin by the end of June.

For up-to-date information on progress of the CWRF project, go to the ECUA website, www.ecua.org.