Temple Terrace Weighs 10% Water and Sewer Hike as PFAS Fix Climbs Toward $72 Million

Temple Terrace's City Council meets at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 11, to go through the Water and Sewer Utility Fund budget for FY2027, and sitting in it is a proposed 10% rate increase for every household and business on the city system. The money would go toward the Water Treatment Plant Master Plan and the removal of PFAS, the "forever chemicals" found in city water at nearly five times the federal limit. The workshop is in the City Council Chambers at City Hall, 11250 N. 56th St., and it is open to the public.

The numbers behind the increase are not small. City Manager Carlos Baia has told council the full overhaul of the water system could exceed $70 million, and local news reports put the five-year plan at $72.2 million. The PFAS treatment piece of that work is not expected to be finished until 2029.

What testing found

Sampling turned up PFOS in Temple Terrace water at up to 19.5 parts per trillion and PFOA at 10 parts per trillion. The EPA's maximum contaminant level for both is 4 parts per trillion. That standard becomes enforceable in 2031, which is the deadline the city is building its schedule around.

PFAS are a family of manufactured compounds used for decades in cookware coatings, food packaging, firefighting foam and stain repellents. They do not break down easily, and research has linked exposure to certain cancers, immune and thyroid effects, and reproductive problems. Temple Terrace is far from alone: thousands of public water systems nationwide have detected them. Small comfort if the tap in question is yours.

The options on the table, and what they cost

Council has been looking at this from two directions at once. One is a fast interim fix. Consultant CHA has said a modular granular activated carbon system could be up and running in three to six months, and Baia has put the cost of a temporary filtration setup at roughly $3 million. The other is the long build: major capital work at the Whiteway Water Treatment Plant, converting the smaller Sunningdale facility into a booster pump station, and adding softening and PFAS removal through nanofiltration with deep-well injection.

Buying the problem away has also been priced out, and it is not cheap either.

Option	Estimated cost
Temporary filtration system	About $3 million
Full water system overhaul	$72.2 million
Connect to City of Tampa	$20M to $39M
Connect to Hillsborough County	$25.7M to $35.8M
Bulk water from the county	$370,000 to $505,000 per month

The connection route just got harder. Baia has confirmed that Tampa staff gave Temple Terrace a verbal no on hooking into the city's system, with nothing yet in writing. Hillsborough County is still checking with Tampa Bay Water on whether it can increase its allocation and act as a reseller of bulk water. Neither of the connection estimates includes the cost of the water itself, and the city would still have to maintain its own storage tanks and distribution pipes.

The rest of the budget stays put

Everything else in the preliminary FY2027 budget is quiet by comparison. The property tax rate holds at 6.455 mills, the same figure the city has used for a tenth straight year. So the water bill is where residents would feel this one.

The city is also chasing outside money to soften the blow. Temple Terrace is part of the multijurisdictional litigation against 3M and DuPont over PFAS contamination, and utilities across the country are lining up for shares of those settlements. Council hired a government affairs firm in December 2025 specifically to pursue state and federal grants and appropriations tied to the filtration work.

What happens next

Tuesday's session is a workshop, so the rate is discussed rather than adopted. The budget itself moves through public hearings tentatively scheduled for Sept. 3, with final adoption set for Sept. 15. Pilot testing of filtration technology continues at the Whiteway plant, and the county's answer from Tampa Bay Water on bulk water is still outstanding. The city posts updates on its Water Questions page.

Follow along at Tampa Community Website and on Facebook, where we post meeting reminders as they come up. If you get your water from Temple Terrace and have a view on the 10%, join the conversation in our Community Forum. You can also read more government and politics stories and keep up with local news from around Hillsborough County.

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Header photo: Tlalock446 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)