Episode 24: Inside Port St. Lucie’s McCarty Ranch Water Quality Project

Caletta Scott:

Did you know that water farming is an indigenous practice used to manage water flow and maximize land productivity? Well, maybe you also know that it’s going down out there near McCarty Ranch Extension and Preserve in Port St. Lucie.

The St. Lucie River C-23 Water Quality Project has restoration, storage, and disc golf. What more can you ask for when all we want is to reduce excess freshwater discharges from entering the North Fork of the St. Lucie River?

We’re gonna talk about all that on this episode of One Lagoon, One Voice.

Duane DeFreese:

Hi, I am Duane De Freese, executive director of the IRL Council and the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program. Welcome to our One Lagoon, One Voice Podcast.

Each week, myself or one of my staff members will host leaders in the community, scientists along the lagoon, people who know a lot about the system to talk about some of the problems.
And most importantly, some of the solutions to solve the Indian River Lagoon’s health and make sure it’s great for future generations.

So let’s get the show started and let’s talk a little lagoon.

Caletta:

Welcome to One Lagoon, One Voice. I’m Caleta Scott, one of three community engagement coordinators with the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program and the host of this episode.

Today we dive into the world of dispersed water management in Port St. Lucie. We’re gonna find out what is actually happening out there, why it matters, and how it’s changing the way Port St. Lucie manages stormwater. We’ll talk about how billions of gallons of runoff is gonna be captured to protect the St. Lucie Estuary and the Indian River Lagoon, we’ll find out about the surprising range of outdoor activities offered to the public, and we’ll wrap up with a look at what’s next for this innovative multipurpose preserve.

Joining us today from the City of Port St. Lucie’s Utility Systems Department is Dan Burdett, natural resources manager, and Jenny Tomes, assistant manager of community outreach.

Welcome, both of you. Jenny, we’re gonna start with you.

Something I love is that you created a superhero called Water Woman. Tell us a little bit about that and how that plays into your role over there at the Utility Systems Department.

Jenny Tomes:

Yes, of course. This was certainly not on the job description, but because I’d been working in the community and, you know, these kids have kind of seen me time and time again, it was just me as me, as Jenny, going.

I think everybody loves a superhero so I sort of created this character called Water Woman who wears shiny pants and rain boots and has a cape and has a utility belt that has a water bottle on it, of course a reusable water bottle, plus a drain snake of truth as Wonder Woman… I guess I’m a Wonder Woman ripoff, but I (laughs)… She does such good work and I was inspired by her, so I thought Water Woman would be perfect.

I created the logo but her motto is to protect and conserve. So a lot of what Water Woman does, it’s weird to talk about that in the third person (laughs). But I, uh… Water Woman, yes, Jenny, I go around and I talk to kids about water conservation and about where our water comes from and help them better understand the water treatment process and then on the other end too, the wastewater treatment process, so we get to talk about all the things water-related and kind of our services as a utility and what we provide.

So I think that the superhero thing is just kind of a fun way to present that. It keeps the kids’ attention. They look at me. I’m literally sparkly, so they listen to what I say. (laughs). It’s a good tool to use. If you need somebody’s attention, just wear a costume.

Caletta:

Awesome. I love Water Woman and-

Jenny:

Thank you.

Caletta:

…I loved meeting and engaging with you in the work that we do, and you’ve introduced me to one of my new buddies, our other guest today, Dan Burdett, who’s the natural resources manager.

Dan, tell us about your journey here and your many years with the City of Port St. Lucie.

Dan Burdett:

Well, first of all, thank you for having me on the podcast. This is great. It was great visiting with you today.

I’m actually transforming into a new role here. I’m Acting Superintendent over the water treatment plants, the maintenance division, and the McCarty Ranch division. So I started out here almost 22 years ago with the City of Port St. Lucie as a trainee in the water treatment plants, worked my way up, got my level licenses up to an A-level license, became a lead operator for nine years, I was Chief Operator over the plants for five years, moved into the role of natural resources and water treatment plant maintenance coordinator.

That’s a mouthful. I need to have it tattooed on my arm so I don’t forget what it is.

And now I’m slowly moving into my new position, which I’ve been acting since January and that’s the superintendent over the plants.

And one thing I wanted to interject about Jenny too, before she started teaching I guess the students and everything, she taught the staff here, and to me that was the most important thing.

She brought the onboarding program alive. She brought the office staff out into the workers’ area and explained to them what was going on with the water treatment end of it, the wastewater treatment end of it, and not only that, all the tours she’s administered throughout the plant.

She’s been such an asset to the utilities and we’re so happy to have her here for the length of time that she has been here.

Caletta:

So I’ve got this fun fact. I think Jenny was the one who shared it with me, but the 1979 James Bond movie Moonraker was filmed right here at the North Fork of the St. Lucie River because it looks like the Amazon, now specifically because it was untouched, but here we are in 2025 and you know the saying, “More people, more problems.”

Now we’re gonna talk a little bit about the historical context of the St. Lucie River and the C-23 Canal.

Dan, if we can go back in time, can you tell us why we need canals?

Dan:

Well, canals naturally filter the water as it goes down. The original intent of Lake O was there was canals, finger lakes, everything like that, that actually went down to the Everglades, right? The Everglades is a natural filter as everything naturally filters down.

However, you said with the population that we’ve had booming over the years, a lot of those canals and rivers and lakes, they’ve all gotten diverted, overtaken, whatever it might have been.
so now the new thing is capturing this water, right, trying to get the water to go to where we want it to go, not flood neighborhoods, not have fish kills, red algae problems, all those issues that we’ve had in the lakes and the streams before.

And I don’t think a lot of people remember old Florida. You know, one lane roads, kind of quiet little neighborhoods, things like that.

And then the big thing is when you came into the state of Florida, right, what did you see? Orange groves everywhere, right? There were orange groves everywhere. There were these farmers that were, that were taking the water out of the canals and actually using it for irrigation, right?

But that has changed. Florida has changed over the years, right, and what we want to do is preserve the way it used to look.

A lot of credit has to be given out to the actual management that was before this management and before that management that had the insight to think forward, right?

Caletta:

Yeah.

Dan:

They had the insight to buy this land up. And let’s say we’re gonna buy this land and we’re gonna keep it natural and we’re gonna take water from this canal and put it into here.

The foreshadowing and the planning, advancing, the changing of policy is all something that needs to be brought to the forefront, right? And that’s what the most important part is to think about is that you have leaders, you have teams, you have people that are willing to put forth that effort and actually make a difference and keep Florida natural as much as we can.

Caletta:

And I think maybe, Jenny, you can share a little bit about how that planning by those leaders has essentially taken advantage of the growth that’s happening here because with more people that live here, that means more taxpayers, that means more money to do these very important things.

Can you share a little bit about that piece of the government making those decisions?

Jenny:

It’s also about… now you’re building ambassadors, right, because… And that’s a big part of my job, and I know that’s what you do too, is that community engagement piece because the people are not slowing down.

I think, what, City of Port St. Lucie’s up over 250,000 people now, population. I think build out is maybe 350, I think, so we’re getting there pretty quickly. We’ve got plans to build a fourth water treatment plant on Range Line Road, pretty close to the Water Quality Project that we’ll be talking about here soon, but like what Dan said, you know, behind Tradition, “What are you doing back there? There’s nothing back there.” There is now, my goodness, Glades Cut Off Road, there’s Copper Creek is back there, Wylder just built a huge community back there. I mean, if you build it they will come, right?

So that fourth water treatment plant, I think we thought we had way more time. Dan was talking about the leaders and management before us. I mean, they had a 50-year plan in place, and now we’re kind of starting to see the ripples of that. 50 years seems like so long, like, so, so long from now, but it’s actually really not. Like it’s getting upon us, right? So there’s that fourth water treatment plant. We thought we had 10 years to build it. Now it’s five years, so now it’s gonna be constructed in by 2030.

And again, it’s to make sure we can continue to provide drinking water to all the folks that are moving here because we are not quite at capacity, but we’re getting there. We’re getting there, and we have to provide those services.

So like Dan said, the forethought, right, and the foreshadowing that those leaders before us had was really… It’s exciting. It’s kind of like, you know, you have a crystal ball and you can kind of predict the future. But they really nailed it. They really nailed it on this one because what… the things that they’ve put in place are really gonna set us up for success with all that future growth.

Caletta:

You’re right. And Port St. Lucie is growing fast.

Jenny:

Yeah.

Caletta:

I don’t know what number it is, but it’s one of the fastest growing cities in the state of Florida, and I bet those leaders are glad that they purchased about 3,107 acres of that largely old Florida pine land back in 2012 and subsequent years because of the demand that the city’s been experiencing. So with over those 250,000 residents, it seems that this restoration and storage project couldn’t be more timely.

So let’s talk about McCarty Ranch Preserve. What’s actually happening, and how did we get here today? Jen, what do you think?

Jenny:

It’s complicated. City of Port St. Lucie Utility Systems Department purchased the McCarty Ranch Preserve area in 2012, and the reason we purchased it is because there are huge lakes on that property. And we both talked about… Dan and I talked about the leaders, you know, years ago who were like, “We gotta figure out a way to keep providing water for all of these new people moving here. Years and years from now, we need to make sure we still have water for them because we pull our water up out of the ground. We can only pull so much from wells. We need to start looking at surficial water options.”

So that property was purchased because of those huge lakes out there.

Now, side benefit, it’s open to the public and there are lots of parks and recreation opportunities out there too, so what a lovely partnership between us and Parks & Recreation that we can host events out there, you can camp, you can do all these amazing things out there, but ultimately it was purchased for future water resources.

A couple years later to the south of that property, we purchased the McCarty Ranch Extension. Now, that is right perpendicular to the C-23 Canal, so, again, looking for future water resources, that piece was purchased and again, it was actually meant to be as much as it’s an old, fallow citrus grove, they had these canals kind of already built in. They had irrigation and they had these pump houses and they had these things, and it was so close to the C-23 Canal, so that property was purchased.

And it’s weird because in between those two properties is a huge gap, and, we don’t have all of that, right? There are other things going on in between it, so that’s why it just gets complicated ’cause they’re two very separate pieces.

The preserve is open to the public and open to people, whereas the extension is closed to the public. There are work trucks and things that go in and out of there, but it is absolutely closed to the public.

But that Water Quality Project, and again, because it is right there near the C-23 Canal, it allows us to pump water in from the C-23 Canal once it reaches a certain level.
That project also allows us to capture rainfall on the property. So right now, we’re not using that water for treatment purposes. What we’re doing is we’re able to hold that water. Each is a reservoir, so that water is pumped into each of these areas and it naturally just percolates into the ground, so it’s recharging the aquifer, it’s recharging the water table.

Now, eventually we’ll tap into it. Eventually, you know, we may need it for drinking water purposes, but for right now, we’re just… we’re keeping it, and we’re sort of storing it, not forever, but it’s allowing it to kind of percolate back down into the ground.

Caletta:

Now everyone doesn’t get the pleasure to take the tour like I did with my wonderful tour guides, Dan and Jenny, but you were talking about the AG 1. There are five of those currently there. They’re huge areas, reservoirs.

But then we’re talking about another area, area 7A and 7B, so tell us about what’s happening with that.

Dan:

So right now it’s in the preliminary stages of going out to bid, getting the actual architectural drawings for everything, but that’s gonna be at the preserve area.

Caletta:

Okay.

Dan:

That’s where 7A and 7B is gonna be at. Obviously we start with 7A and then we move our way up to 7B. 7A is gonna be 234 acres and we’re looking to capture about over a billion gallons in that area. They’re gonna be a little bit taller than the ones we have also, right? It’s more of a retention area of where we can keep more water, right? There’s retention ponds so there’s different ways when you’re talking stormwater, and I won’t bore anybody with that because that’s a long class and I’ll put people asleep.

Caletta:

(laughs).

Dan:

So, we’ll just keep it as light as we can, you know? But those areas over there, like Jenny was saying, they are two very separate properties, but they are connected by this little sliver of land where they kept an idea of keeping it, and that’s what we call the Herman Canal.

So the Herman Canal does extend from the extension all the way up to the preserve, and that’s gonna be one of our main areas to hopefully transfer water from the extension area up to the preserve area, also the lakes. That’s what we want to eventually put these lakes in.

Also, what we’re looking at in the areas 7A and 7B is kind of between those areas is what we have a forward aquifer recovery well. So when we have excess water, when we have a lot of rainfall or we can’t treat as much as that’s possible, we’ll pump that water back down into the aquifer and it acts as a replenishment for the aquifer.

Like Jenny said before, there’s only so much water you can pull out of the ground so we’re gonna be stewards of our own and try to preserve what we have to actually pump this water back down into the earth.

Caletta:

How does the timeline for 7A and 7B impact visitors and residents getting out to the preserve?

Dan:

We make it so you can still enjoy the preserve as it is. We’ll be off to the side of the road. You’ll see us and everybody’ll be pointing, think that we’re building the next Buc-ee’s over there, but it’s not, you know? It’s gonna be (laughs), it’s gonna be a new water retention area.

There’ll be trucks in and out of there, but, you know, ultimately the goal is we keep McCarty Ranch Preserve open to the public, right? So we want to not disrupt that as much as possible. So they’ll still have full access to everything.

We’re actually running water lines right now and we’re bringing actual drinking water back to where we have the RVs parked at. So we have the primitive camping over there, then we have the RVs parked over there. We have Frisbee golf. That’s another thing over there. Never heard of that before in my life until I actually had to take over this (laughs) area.

So we’ll keep that open, the hiking trails, the natural trails that are back in there. The Parks & Rec, they put bonfires up and, you know, have the Bonfire Hayrides and, you know, all the things that they do over there. It’s not just the utilities. This is a shared area with Parks & Rec and we’re all one city. We get along fantastically, so it’s good that we’re able to shake hands with other departments and make sure that things get done for the community, you know?

So us in the background, we’ll be building 7A and 7B. We want to keep everything natural. We want that look so when people come out from the City of Port St. Lucie and they see what we’ve done, they enjoy what we do, it’s not an eyesore. This is not something that people don’t want to see. This is something that people want to see, and hopefully we can keep it that way.

Caletta:

Absolutely.

Next, we’re gonna get into a little bit of the environmental impact. So we’ve gone from a beautiful pristine Amazon jungle back in the ’70s to one of the fastest growing cities in the state, and as we know, with that type of growth comes increased environmental impacts.

Can we talk about some of the major sources of pollution? Dan, what do you think? I know what you’re gonna say, but tell us.

Dan:

People. People. That’s the major source of pollution, right? People don’t realize that.

You throw your garbage out of your car, your water bottles on the floor, you don’t pick up after yourself. Where does that go? You know, nobody thinks about that, but go look at stormwater. Go look at the intakes of stormwater. Go look at your drains around your streets. Go look in those areas. That’s where it collects, you know?

The main source of pollution is the little bits that happen every single day, and then it finally collects and collects and collects and then boom, it’s a major issue, right? Nobody wants a major issue, right? We have to plan for that. We have infrastructure that we rake this stuff out, we clean up these canals, we make them a little wider so they can handle more flow of water.

The big push now, right, everybody’s running out of water, so what do you do next? And everybody turns to stormwater.

Caletta:

Yes. Yes.

So the goal, keeping the pollution out of the St. Lucie River Estuary and the Indian River Lagoon… can you tell us how this project’s gonna do that and maybe touch upon the nitrogen and phosphorus reduction that’s taking place?

Jenny, can you talk to us about that?

Jenny:

Sure. This particular project, and again, there’s not one magic bullet. It’s not like there’s one thing that we can point to and go, “This. This is the problem.” There’s so many contributing factors.

And I wanted to say too that just because, you may not live near a waterway, but your actions absolutely impact the closest waterway, even if it doesn’t seem like it’s close by. Between pollution and even things like simple things you might not think about, but if you, like, overfill your garbage can and the lid doesn’t go down, now you’ve got loose garbage, and it just… it all, it all adds up.

Caletta:

Mm-hmm.

Jenny:

Don’t get me started on septic systems, right? So it’s like there’s all these, like, different things that are potential pollutants, but with this particular project, with our Water Quality Project… with water, as amazing as water is, water also brings with it excess nutrients, naturally occurring phosphorus and nitrogen, which are wonderful. However, too much of that is going to disrupt the balance, right?

So if there’s too much excess freshwater that could disrupt, that could lead to algal blooms, fish kills, things like that, so with this project, that’s a big part of it. It takes some of that nutrient load and is able to just kind of divert it and keep it from impacting the North Fork and the estuary.

Caletta:

I was taking a look and doing some research before we started talking, and it said 55,792 lbs of nitrogen and 7,545 lbs of phosphorus is the goal to be removed from the water entering the North Fork.

Those numbers seem like gobbledygook to me, Dan. Can you help bring that calculation down in a way?

Dan:

Well, how it’s computed is this. And for any science people out there in the water treatment industry, they’re gonna love this, but, you know, all everybody else will just follow along (laughs).

So you take a sample of the water and everything’s measured in milligrams per liter, right? So we get the samples, and we don’t actually grab the samples. They’re grabbed by South Florida Water Management.

So then you take the milligrams per liter and you turn it into pounds, and then when you take that and turn it into pounds, it has to calculate into how much water we’re pulling out of the C-23 Canal at that time, so it’s a math formula. So you’re taking the water pulled out of the canal, you’re taking the pounds… the milligrams per liter, converting it to pounds, and then that equates to how many pounds that we’re pulling out per year, per month.

We keep total records on all of that stuff as far as what we’re pulling out of there. And everybody forgets this is an ecosystem that’s living and thriving every single day. So you have an imbalance of an ecosystem.

We compare it to a fish tank you have at home, right? You put some fish in a fish tank and then you throw too much food in there or you put too much water in there and now the fish are dying, or the water gets really cloudy or, oh my goodness, what’s going on?

Caletta:

Well, you touched on some science there, and I thank you for all our scientist listeners. I love the scientists, but I also spoke about the essential workers that are your staff and your team. I know it takes a lot of people to get this done.

What type of things do people do in your team working on this project?

Dan:

Well, like I said, I come from the water treatment end of things, right? So water treatment, stormwater treatment, they’re kind of handshaking at this point, right, because where are we getting our water from? We draw it from wells right here at the city. We draw everything off of wells. We’re not a surface water plant yet. That’s the eventual… what we’ll be going to.

But the team I work with is a group of six, seven talented mechanics. These guys are fantastic. They work hard. They work very hard at what they do. So we actually maintain all the treatment plants, so it’s only, like, a side thing that McCarty comes into play, and I tell you, I can’t thank them enough for everything that they do.

Caletta:

Well, I’m gonna do my part as a Fort Pierce resident and a St. Lucie County taxpayer. I’m gonna make sure that I get out there. I’ve already taken that seemingly long ride west of the preserve to west of the preserve….

Dan:

That’s not that long. Come on (laughs).

Caletta:

I know. It just seems long. It seems long, but it’s… I’ll tell you that it’s worth it. There’s a big lake out there with a gator. It’s a treat, and I… There is so much more.

You touched on disc golf and bonfire rides. Jen, there’s camping out there. You told me about some camping.

Jenny:

It’s so funny. It seems like, you know, the City of Port St. Lucie is so, so busy, and, like, as the crow flies, McCarty Ranch is not terribly far away, but it really seems like it’s a whole different world at the preserve, so we took advantage of camping out there, so primitive camping. They’ve got 13 camping sites. You look at the map, it’s kind of hard to tell on, you know, flat piece of paper, kind of, which ones would be the best ones, I like camping site nine because it’s got a tiny little walkway out to the lake, which was really cool. They’re all beautiful, but I like that one, and I’ve got my eye on site number 13, so next time we go out there, I’m definitely reserving 13 because that’s at the very end and it just feels bigger and I just like the way it’s situated, so 9 and 13 would be my recommendations, but they’re all $20 a night.

I don’t do a lot of camping, so I was surprised. They’ve got, like, a little pit, you know, for your fire. They’ve got sort of a stand that you can hang a lantern on. I mean, I guess that’s pretty much it. The bathrooms are not terribly far away. And then just around the other side of the lake, as you kind of make the turn, that’s where the RV camping is, so they’ve got huge slabs, you know, you can pull in your RV. But they’ve got, like Dan said, they’re bringing out drinking water there, so it’s very cool.

I’ve seen people bring horses out there. People will have their trailer, bring horses out there and you’ve mentioned, a gator. There are more than one. Way… (laughs).

There’s a lot of alligators, so no inflatable kayaks, stuff like that… You know, use your good common sense and don’t… do not swim in that lake. It’s just like any body of water in Florida. You have to enter with extreme caution. There are a lot of gators out there, but, you know, you kind of go there, you’re in their house, so you be respectful and then they will be respectful of you as well.

You mentioned too the Bonfire Hayride, that’s an annual event that Parks & Rec hosts. That’s gotten big and big. I mean, again-

Caletta:

It’s a blast.

Jenny:

…And there’s so many people who attend, but they bring a huge, like, portable stage out there. They’ve got vendors. I mean, it’s very cool. They do fishing contests, but they kind of hitch sort of a trailer to a tractor and, you know, then you sit on kind of hay bales (laughs) and they kind of take you around the lake a little bit, so that’s kind of a neat way to see the property out there.

Caletta:

I got a chance to do that Bonfire Hayride, and it’s just everyone enjoying being in nature and I thought that that was the best thing ever, so as we give a little plug to PSL Naturally and Leaving No Trace, we definitely want more people to get out there to the preserve.

And now (laughs), listeners, we’ve got an in on the prime spots to camp 9 and 13.

Jenny:

(laughs). 9 and 13. Those are the ones.

Dan:

Jenny, you gave up the spots.

Jenny:

I know. Sorry (laughs).

Caletta:

Maybe you tell them that you heard it here on the One Lagoon, One Voice podcast.

Jenny:

Yes.

Caletta:

You know? I don’t know how many people we want to know, but Port St. Lucie and the Treasure Coast is no longer a secret and there’s already plenty of people here, and now with all this connectivity through the extension of Becker Road, there’s so much development, I expect many more people and I hope many more people get to access McCarty Ranch Preserve.

Dan:

Also, so you know, all you have to do is go on the city website, www.cityofpsl.com and once you go on the city website, you can sign up for your areas of camping.

So if you have an RV, you sign up on the city website. There’s a link on there. It’ll tell you how to sign up and where you park. You get a little piece of paper you print out and you put it on a clipboard that’s out there, and the same thing with the camping sites.

Camping sites right now are running $20 a night. I think the RV sites are $35 a night. And so you do that all online. There’s nobody out there to take your money or to tell you which site you’re on and all of that stuff. It’s all done through our website.

Caletta:

I think that makes it really easy. And one thing that I noticed when I was looking over there with Parks & Rec is that Port St. Lucie says that there’s a frequently asked questions, and one of them was, “Do I have to be a resident of Port St. Lucie to come?” And the answer I thought was so great. It was like, “No. We have all of these spaces open for all.” And I thought that was really special because this is so important to our local economy and our quality of life.

Dan:

Right. But if you’re from Palm Beach, we charge you double.

Caletta:

Oh.

Dan:

Um, that’s just on the side and we split that between me and Jenny, so…

Caletta:

(laughs) didn’t know about that special deal (laughs).

Dan:

Yeah. I’ll joke around. Everybody’s the same.

Caletta:

so Dan, you talked a little bit about the connecting the preserve to the extension and project. The part of the project that’s 7A and 7B.

What else is going on in your department that your team is working on, and what would you like the folks to know about the work that you, you all do?

Dan:

Well, I said it before. McCarty Ranch is like a part-time gig for us, right, at this point because we’re just capturing water, we’re maintaining things, and when I say part-time, that’s a lot of time that we spend out there…

But our primary focus is the water treatment plants. That’s what the primary focus is of this group that oversees all this area, and we have to keep the water treatment plants running and that’s our ultimate goal. This is a future water treatment plant or a future water treatment supply. I’m not gonna say a plant because it’s just a supply for it, so that on the other side is where we have to maintain a balance.

The most important thing I want people to remember is that there’s someone here 24 hours a day, seven days a week treating this water. It’s not done by automation, no AI. It’s actual people that are here all the time and making sure you have a safe drinking water.

Stop buying all that bottled water. If you look on the side of a bottle of water, it says purified reverse osmosis with minerals added into it. Guess what? I don’t know if it’s a big surprise, but that’s exactly what we do here. We purify water reverse osmosis and we add minerals to it.

I think the biggest misconception that people have with the City of Port St. Lucie’s water is that, “I’m from this area it tastes so different.” And it’s, uh… I’ll give you it, you know? I’m from New York where the pipes are a lot deeper on the ground, it’s a lot colder. The water comes out of your tap colder. That’s the biggest difference going on right now. The water coming out of your tap is 77 degrees, so take that water, put it in your fridge for a little bit, you know, put it in a cooler. you’ll see the difference.

My mother in-law is an Italian cook, right? She says, “I can’t, I can’t. My, my pasta doesn’t cook the same. The bread doesn’t rise the same. Everything’s a problem, you know?” Buy spring water, you know? That’s the difference in New York. They’re using spring water, right? Eventually, that’s what we’ll be using too when it comes to a surface water plant. We’re just combining it all in together as one.

The ultimate goal for the City of Port St. Lucie is to keep the residents that they don’t know who we are. We’re the mystery player behind everything that just keeps things running, and if we can keep things running every day and nobody complains about us or nobody notices what we do, that’s fantastic.

So I’ve been here going on 22 years right now, and we’ve never had a boil water notice where it comes down to low pressures. And it’s not me, it’s not Jenny, it’s not anyone, but it’s all together as a team that we make this happen, and it’s a big team of… we got over 300 employees, I think.

Caletta:

Thank you, Dan. I feel really confident that with you in charge and the wonderful staff members-

Dan:

I’m just a cog. I’m just a cog. I’m not in charge (laughs).

Caletta:

But you know what? You take ownership of it like it is yours, and that is something that us essential workers can get behind, okay?

Dan:

But if you talk to one… another person in the utilities, then we’re all the same. We all take ownership into what we do. We all have a big pride into what we do, from management all the way down to a trainee. It’s everybody takes that role on and we know that we’re stewards for the environment, and that’s the important part.

Caletta:

Thank you.

Jenny, is there anything you’d like to share, and that you’d like people to know about the work you do as Water Woman or any of the other initiatives that are going on in Port St. Lucie?

Jenny:

Yeah. I am truly proud of what we do and what we accomplish every day.

I get a lot of questions. I’m out in the public quite a bit and I get questions, you know, “Is your water safe?”

Yes, absolutely. With all of my heart and soul, yes, absolutely it is. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be operating. I mean, believe me…

And I think a lot with our water, it comes down to your own palate. Do you like the way it tastes or you don’t? But you never, ever have to worry that it’s not safe to use, safe to drink, safe for your pets, safe for your kids, safe for you.

And again, we’ve got so many people from all over the country, and of course water is going to taste different. That’s one of my favorite things whenever I travel. I’m so… You guys have made me such a nerd, Dan, that when I go (laughs)… Anywhere I go, any new city, I taste the tap water because it’s fascinating to me because it comes from different resources, there’s different, forgive me, different things in the ground, right? Like, there’s just different things that change the makeup of the water, and I just think it’s so cool.

I’ve really grown to love this industry and I think it’s amazing and I think it’s so important. I have so much respect for the people who are in it, who are the scientists, who are the engineers, who are the operators. It’s just… It’s amazing to me.

At the end of the day, that’s our main goal is to provide superior, supreme levels of water and sewer services. So there’s a lot, a lot, a lot that goes into it, and as much as you may not realize that there’s 300 people behind the scenes doing the things, there are. There are, and so that’s what you’re paying for. You’re paying for this service. You’re paying not to worry (laughs) right? You turn that tap on, it’s gonna come on, right, and you can trust what’s coming out of it.

So I think that’s my biggest thing that I like to tell people about is it really does, it takes a lot of people, and they care so deeply. They really, really do (laughs). They care so much about what they do, so I just… It’s a pleasure to work with the folks.

Caletta:

Thank you both so much.

The St. Lucie River C-23 Water Quality Project is… how can I say it. It’s about the work that people don’t see, just like we were saying earlier.

I wanna thank our guests, Dan Burdett and Jenny Tomes, for taking the time to share the good work being done by the City of Port St. Lucie and its utilities department.

This podcast is truly a great way to increase heightened public awareness and highlight the coordinated interagency management of the Indian River Lagoon ecosystem.

Before we go, if you could just make one wish for the Indian River Lagoon, what would that be? Dan, let’s start with you.

Dan:

Keep it clean. That would be my wish.

Jenny:

Yeah. Yeah. Ditto. Ditto. Keep it clean and enjoy it. Absolutely. Get out and take a look at it. If you’re anywhere near it, go. It’s amazing.

Dan:

Yes.

Caletta:

Thank you both for joining us.

Dan:

Thank you.

Caletta:

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