What Is a PEP Tank — and Why Is It Your Problem?

Half of Palm Coast runs its sewage through a buried tank in the yard. What the system is, where it came from, what happens when the power goes out, and why replacing it is showing up on your utility bill.

The term appears in city documents, rate studies, and capital improvement plans with the frequency of a word everyone is assumed to know. Most residents do not know it. That is not their fault. The city has rarely explained it in terms that connect the hardware buried in their yard to the bills arriving in their mailbox and the debt being authorized in their name.

This backgrounder corrects that.

The hardware

PEP stands for Pretreatment Effluent Pumping. The system accounts for half of Palm Coast’s wastewater collection network, with conventional gravity sewer handling the other half. In areas served by the PEP system, each home has a buried fiberglass tank, a small electric pump, and a control panel mounted on the exterior of the house. The green light on that panel should always be on. The red light is the high-water alarm.

The buried tank handles the first stage of treatment. Wastewater enters through a four-inch pipe from the house, settles, and breaks down anaerobically. When the liquid level reaches the height at which the float is set, the control system activates the pump. The pump sends a measured volume of liquid through the service line into the pressure main and on to the wastewater treatment plant.

There are currently more than 14,000 of these systems in Palm Coast. City utility technicians respond to between thirty and fifty service calls on them every day.

Where it came from

The PEP system is not a design flaw. It was a deliberate cost decision made by the original developer. Palm Coast was built by ITT Corporation beginning in 1969. ITT designed and installed the PEP system as an alternative to conventional gravity sewer — specifically because gravity sewer costs more to build.

The geography made conventional sewer expensive. The water table in this part of Florida is high enough that gravity alone cannot move wastewater reliably across the distances involved. Rather than dig deep trenches and build lift stations throughout the development, ITT distributed the pumping work to individual lots. Each home got its own tank and pump. The pipes could be smaller, shallower, and cheaper. Manholes were not required.

ITT saved on capital costs. The city — incorporated in 1999 — inherited the system ITT left behind. The system is owned and operated by the City of Palm Coast Utility Department. The resident owns none of it. The resident’s property simply hosts it.

The vulnerability

The system’s dependency on electricity is not incidental. It is structural. When power goes out, the pump stops. The tank fills. It does not empty into the wastewater system because there is no power to run the pump. The reserve capacity in the tank allows roughly one normal day’s household usage before backups begin — typically appearing first in the shower.

Residents on PEP systems are therefore in a materially different position than residents on gravity sewer during any significant storm or extended power outage. They are not merely inconvenienced. They are operating on a countdown.

The city maintains neighborhood pump station generators designated specifically for PEP system backup and coordinates with Florida Power & Light to prioritize power restoration in PEP-served areas. In practice, during major storm events — as seen during Hurricane Milton in 2024 — the system has been strained. Tank trucks were deployed. Generator crews worked block by block as power was restored street by street.

The age problem

The tanks now in the ground were installed during Palm Coast’s original development. Many have been in service for more than fifty years. The pumps, floats, electrical connections, and plumbing fittings age. They fail. They are replaced on a rolling basis — which is part of why the daily service call volume is what it is.

The city has now acknowledged that piecemeal maintenance is no longer sufficient. The current capital improvement plan includes system-wide replacement of PEP tanks throughout Palm Coast as part of a broader utility infrastructure investment that also encompasses wastewater treatment plant expansion and more than a hundred million dollars in raw water supply work.

That replacement program is part of what is driving the rate increases residents are currently absorbing. Delaying the investment increased its cost — by the city’s own account, approximately twenty-five percent due to inflation and project modifications, with construction costs alone rising roughly fifteen percent in recent years. Every year the city did not act added to the bill that is now being presented.

What this means for advocates and activists

The PEP tank is city property. It sits on your property, but it belongs to the city. The city installed it, maintains it, and is now replacing it system-wide — at ratepayer expense, financed through a combination of rate increases and bond debt that will be paid over decades.

Understanding that fact is necessary context for the water bill story. The PEP system is not a side issue in the rate increase debate. It is one of the primary capital obligations the city deferred for years and is now funding at inflation-adjusted cost. Advocates and activists reviewing the city’s utility strategic plan, its capital improvement schedule, or its Local Funding Initiative Requests will encounter PEP tank replacement repeatedly. Now you know what it means.

Mr. Gaines practiced law in Manhattan for forty-one years. He does not consider this complicated.

Sources

City of Palm Coast — What Is a PEP Tank?
Official city description of the PEP system, its components, and resident responsibilities.
palmcoast.gov — PEP Tank

City of Palm Coast — Wastewater Collections & Pumping
System-wide statistics: 14,000-plus tanks, 165 pump stations, 700 miles of lines, daily service call volume.
palmcoast.gov — Wastewater Collections

City of Palm Coast — 2025 Utility Strategic Plan
Documents deferred investment, consent decree, inflation cost increases, and the long-term capital funding approach.
palmcoast.gov — Utility Strategic Plan

City of Palm Coast — Utility Infrastructure Investment Plan (March 2025)
Announces system-wide PEP tank replacement as part of the broader capital program.
palmcoast.gov — Infrastructure Investment Plan