Electric Department
The City of Newberry Electric Utility was established in 1910. A City Utility Board governed the Electric Utility until sometime in the 1970’s. Today this utility is governed under the City Commission. We have two administrative employees, two customer service/billing clerks and an electric distribution field crew of five to maintain the service territory that is approximately three square miles with nearly 1250 customers. 77% of those are residential customers and the remaining 23% is comprised of commercial, industrial, city and other tax exempt customers.
The City purchases power from Florida Municipal Power Agency. For fiscal year 2010-2011, gross revenue for the electric department was $4.1 million. It is anticipated that the gross revenue for FY 2011-2012 will be approximately $4.4 million. There are approximately 25 miles of overhead distribution and five miles of underground distribution that we maintain for our customers.
Water & Sewer Departments
Potable water and sanitary sewer is provided by the City. In urban Newberry, an average daily flow for potable water is around 722,000 gallons per day and 217,000 gallons per day for the sanitary sewer. Our system services approximately 1568 water/sewer customers. There are approximately 23 miles of water mains and 22 miles of sanitary sewer collection system. In addition to two administrative employees and two customer service/billing clerks (who also serve the electric department), we have five field employees in these departments responsible for providing clean and safe drinking water along with proper treatment and disposal of sanitary sewer.
The City of Newberry and the Suwannee River Water Management District jointly purchased 100 acres north of town for a wellhead protection area. A new well with a pumping rate of 1000 GPM along with associated treatment plant and water mains was added in December 2011 for increased system capacity.
The current wastewater treatment plant operates presently at about 70% of its permitted capacity. We have a 260,000 gal/day treatment expansion to the sewer plant scheduled for construction this year. We will also be expanding our spray effluent disposal and land application site for Solids Disposal.
For fiscal year 2010-2011, gross revenue for the water and sewer department was $1,268,469. It is anticipated that the gross revenue for FY 2011-2012 will be approximately $1,319,690.
