technology The Smell of Technology by: Caitlin Lawrence, Public Information Officer, City of Panama City
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If you’ve ever been through the area of W. 23rd Street or Michigan Avenue in Panama City, you’ve probably thought or even said out loud what is that smell? It’s often described as rotten eggs, a smell emitted from the St. Andrews Wastewater Treatment Plant, located at 2226 Michigan Avenue. In addition to the smell, people have likely also heard the sounds of construction going on at the plant in the last year. The facility, which was originally built more than 30 years ago, is being rebuilt on the existing site for $34,147,800, the largest project in the city’s history. The City Commis-
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sion awarded the construction contract to Marshall Brothers Construction & Engineering in October 2016 with actual construction beginning last January. The plant currently processes about 2.5 million gallons of raw sewage each day. The new facility will have three new Sequencing Batch Reactors, which are 3.5 million gallon tanks that receive wastewater and treat it before it is released into St. Andrew Bay. This expansion increases the plant’s capacity to accommodate growth on the west side of the city such as the SweetBay housing development at the former airport site.
