Tampa Bay Water has been awarded a $10 million Alternative Water Supply Grant from the state of Florida to help pay for the expansion of its Regional Surface Water Treatment Plant in Tampa.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Oct. 28 that the state will allocate $100 million to spring restoration and alternative water supply projects across Florida. Tampa Bay Water’s share covers roughly 5.5% of the expansion’s approximately $181 million price tag.
The utility has also secured $1,016,667 in congressional funding and $1 million in state funding for the project. Together with the new grant, outside government money now totals about $12 million, or less than 7% of the project’s cost. The announcement did not say how the remaining balance will be covered.
Tampa Bay Water provides wholesale drinking water to more than 2.6 million people in Pinellas, Hillsborough, and Pasco counties, and in the cities of St. Petersburg, New Port Richey, and Tampa.
“We have a growing demand in the Tampa Bay area,” said Karim Molina-Oyola, the agency’s senior project manager. “The project will also support the resiliency of our water infrastructure. We need more redundancy.”
The plant has operated since 2002. It treats water from the Alafia River, Hillsborough River, and Tampa Bypass Canal, along with surplus water stored at the C.W. Bill Young Regional Reservoir in Hillsborough County.
Construction began in September 2025, more than a year before the grant was announced. The project will add up to 12.5 million gallons per day of treatment capacity, which Molina-Oyola said is nearly a 14% increase. It will add a fifth treatment process train, which works like an assembly line in which raw water passes through a series of filters and is then treated with chemicals to make it safe to drink.
According to Tampa Bay Water, the expansion will enlarge the plant’s ACTIFLO clarification process, add an ozone contactor, install more biologically active filters, and expand secondary disinfection chemical systems. Crews have completed large-diameter pipe installation and continue work on foundations, filters, pumps, chemical facilities, and other critical systems.
Molina-Oyola said the project is expected to be finished by 2028 and should meet regional drinking water demand through 2033. Tampa Bay Water chose the expansion from three top-ranked projects after gathering public input as part of its Long-Term Master Water Plan update.
“We are thankful to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for granting us this funding opportunity,” Molina-Oyola said. “This project will increase our reliability at the site.”
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