When Danny Ashburn first began working at Palm Coast's wastewater treatment plant in 1981, they handled about 300,000 gallons a day of sewage.

Today?

It's 6.83 million gallons.

“We're at the point now where we've reached the threshold with DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) that we either have to expand this plant or look at building another facility,” Ashburn said.

So Palm Coast has plans to borrow about $30 million to build a new, state-of-the-art plant to cover anticipated growth on the city's north and west side.

Homebuyers and builders are re-discovering Palm Coast at a pace where entire neighborhoods are beginning to spring up.

Here's why this matters. All that momentum could be quashed without this new wastewater treatment plant or an expansion at the other one.

“You can't keep adding people to systems that you just don't have room for,” Ashburn said.

Meaning developers could get permits to build, but the state DEP would not let them tie into the sewer system.

That's a situation no developer wants to be in, so they would opt for an area which could handle the homes.

City planners said population projections have the one sewer plant reaching capacity in just three years.

They hope to have the new plant up and running in two.

That's because finding water and reusing what we have is getting more and more difficult in this state.

Ashurn said that's why the city tries hard to use every drop to its potential. “Every bit of reuse that we can take advantage of in the city, that's our program.”