Thursday April 10th, 2008 - 10:43AM

Just as promised, the downtown sewage treatment plant is on its way out.

What this means to the CMP is that the treatment plant will not be an obstacle to enjoying the park. This is what was promised to residents, and the city, the ECUA, and the non-profit Community Maritime Park Associates Board of Trustees are delivering on their promise.

Read for yourself this article from the Pensacola News Journal published Thursday (4/8/2008):

http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080408/NEWS01/804080326/-1/archives

The following is quoted verbatim from the PNJ's article by Sara Rabb:

Here's a summary of where the project stands:

* In about a week, crews will begin clearing the site for the new plant, near the Solutia Inc. plant off U.S. 29 in central Escambia County.

* Federal Emergency Management Agency officials have given the ECUA informal approval to move forward on the project, and several contracts will be advertised in coming months.

* The final design for all project elements is expected to be completed in about a month.

* About 90 percent of the land needed for right-of-way has been purchased. When complete, the project will comprise 25 miles of new pipeline, most of it 48 inches in diameter.

* Officials with the ECUA are finalizing plans for an effluent disposal plan that will make the plant a zero-discharge facility. Plans under consideration include disposing effluent into spray fields, infiltration basins or possible reuse by International Paper Co.

* Gulf Power Co. also will take about 17 million gallons per day of treated effluent from the new plant and reuse it for generating electricity at its coal-fired Crist Power Plant, which is about three miles from the new ECUA plant site. Water that is not evaporated at Crist will be returned to the treatment plant.

"There will not be a direct surface-water discharge. It will be reused somehow," ECUA Executive Director Steve) Sorrell said.

The Main Street plant currently discharges treated wastewater into Pensacola Bay.

The arrangement between the ECUA and Gulf Power means the Crist plant no longer will be drawing water from the Escambia River or discharging water into it, as it does now.