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Comprehensive Plan Private Treatment Plants Sanitary Sewer Sub -Element As indicated in the background section of this Sub -Element, the reason that the county started direct provision of wastewater treatment services was due to problems at private package treatment facilities. In many cases, the problems with private plants were due to the operational aspects of the plant, rather than with the plant itself. Because of those problems and their environmental impacts, the County Utilities Department has decommissioned all but four private plants. Customers formerly served by private plants that have been decommissioned have been connected to the county system. To avoid a repeat of past problems, to ensure the financial viability of the regional system, and to discourage urban sprawl, new package treatment plants are generally prohibited within the urban service area. Consistent with the provisions of the Future Land Use Element of this plan, package treatment plants or connection to the regional system may be allowed outside of the urban service area to serve development projects that meet the following specific criteria: • clustering of residential development within agricultural areas; • clustering of residential development within privately owned upland conservation areas; • clustering development within mixed use districts; or • traditional neighborhood design communities. • agricultural businesses and industries (including biofuel facilities) In the future, the county will continue to maintain and enforce the above referenced policies. EFFLUENT DISPOSAL Another wastewater treatment issue concerns long range plans for effluent disposal. With respect to effluent disposal, the county has several alternatives. Those alternatives include requiring new commercial and/or residential development to use reuse water, retrofitting existing development to use reuse water, or creating wetlands with reuse water. While retrofitting existing development is, by a large margin, the most expensive of these options, requiring that new development accommodate reuse water is somewhat less expensive. In fact, new commercial areas are currently required to accommodate reuse lines. Even some single-family and multiple -family residential developers, although not required to, have chosen to incur the extra expense of building their projects to accommodate reuse water. Community Development Department Indian River County 37 263 Attachment 4