When Brad Hayes moved from Massachusetts to Tavares and took over as Director of Utilities, he was surprised by the City's rolling hills, its beautiful trees, numerous lakes, and all 69 of its wastewater lift stations. If you do the math, that comes out to about one lift station per 168 residents, or about one lift station per 68 acres of land area.

How could such a small municipality need that many lift stations? Turns out that the scenic, rolling hills make gravity feed into the wastewater treatment plant difficult in most parts of the City. Couple that with the City's relatively low population density (approximately 1600 persons per square mile) and many lakes, and you get 69 wastewater lift stations.

During his first few weeks on the job as Director of Utilities, Brad could tell immediately that something needed to change..