Jacksonville has always known that removing septic tanks from neighborhoods would be a massive undertaking in time and money, making it the public works equivalent of doing root canal surgery in dozens of communities.
A long-awaited report from JEA shows how Jacksonville could cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the high cost of phasing out septic tanks in 32 of those neighborhoods by using a different approach for bringing sewer service to homes.
JEA has been using estimates it would cost about $1 billion to take care of those neighborhoods, but that expense would drop to $743 million by using a vacuum sewer system technology, the report shows.
Read the rest of this story from WJCT News partner The Florida Times-Union.