ST. PETERSBURG — For the second straight year, a major rain event forced the city to dump millions of gallons of partially treated sewage into local waterways.

On Tuesday night, the city started pumping at least two million gallons into Tampa Bay, according to an estimate by Claude Tankersley, the city's public works administrator.

Without knowing how much more rain would fall, Tankersley said he couldn't estimate how many more gallons would need to be dumped.

"Who knows?" he said. "I really have no way of guessing."

A mixture of partially treated sewage, rainwater, groundwater and stormwater will be pumped by a pipe about a quarter-of-a-mile into the bay.

Tankersley estimated that 10 percent to 20 percent of that mixture is partially treated sewage.

The dumping was reminiscent of last summer, when city spills or dumps allowed 31.5 million gallons of partially treated and untreated sewage into Boca Ciega Bay and Tampa Bay.

Afterward, Kriseman administration officials said that shifting two high-powered pumps to the southwest treatment plant would help prevent future spills in all but the most catastrophic events.

Clearly, said council member Karl Nurse, that thinking was "fundamentally wrong."

The city's sewer pipes, which are old and prone to leaks, need to be fixed quickly, Nurse said.

In a statement, Kriseman pushed back.

"As council member Karl Nurse is aware, our wastewater system has undergone a professional study and there is a plan to upgrade it. Throwing a few million dollars of BP funds towards this problem will not provide us with the short-term or long-term solutions that our residents deserve," Kriseman said.

Nurse and some other council members have pressed the administration to free up millions of dollars to fix a system that dates back to the 1920s.

On Tuesday, Nurse and council member Steve Kornell said the city's remaining share of $6.5 million in BP settlement money from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster needs to be tapped quickly.

Kriseman has resisted requests to spend BP money on sewers, preferring other expenditures, such as a ferry service to Tampa, a bike share program and helping to replace a marine-science research vessel.

Kornell took issue with that stance on Tuesday.

"It's astounding to me that they have prioritized bike share money over sewers," Kornell said.

Earlier Tuesday, at least two manholes burst near the Perry Bayview Community Playground, spilling at least 1,500 gallons of untreated sewage near a children's playground at 27th Avenue S and 38th Street S., Tankersley said.

Later, after 8 p.m., Tankersley said the city was having its most severe problem at the Northwest Wastewater Plant, which handles the sewage for beach towns like Treasure Island and St. Pete Beach.

St. Petersburg isn't the only city to have released wastewater into waterways. Last summer, almost every municipality in Tampa Bay did so, including Tampa. Tropical Storm Colin dumped about 12 inches of rain between Sunday and Tuesday in some areas, exposing infrastructure woes once more.

In St. Pete Beach, officials asked residents not to take showers or wash dishes and to limit the flushing of toilets. County officials asked Madeira Beach residents to do the same because of blockages in the sewer system there.

In Tampa, 355,000 gallons of untreated sewage overflowed into the Hillsborough River for about two hours, said wastewater director Eric Weiss.

But the issue has resonated politically in St. Petersburg, which has battled with Gulfport over last summer's dumps into Boca Ciega Bay, which the cities share.

Kriseman's spokesman, Ben Kirby, asked the Times not use "sewage" to describe what was being pumped into Tampa Bay.

The correct term, Kirby said, was "very diluted wastewater."

Still, the city warned residents to "avoid contact with the water" on the city's waterfront.

After last year's dumps, Kriseman said they had happened because it had been a 100-year rain event, Kornell said.

"So we just had another 100-year rain event in less than one year's time," Kornell said.

Times staff writer Tony Marrero contributed to this report. Charlie Frago can be reached at cfrago@tampabay.com.



