During Tuesday’s City Council Meeting, scheduled for 6:30pm at the Titusville Fire HQ in downtown, a new Wawa gas station & convenience store is seeking to gain approval of a Conditional Use Permit, which is needed to store the thousands of gallons of fuel underground in an ‘Area of Critical Concern’.

An ACC is an area determined by the City to be of importance, due to a well near Barna & Cheney Hwy. But the City states in their report says the underground fuel storage tanks are outside of the 1,500 foot well radius, where more stringent impervious surface area maximums apply.

The submitted concept plan proposes the location of the fuel tanks to be the southeast corner of the property, that portion of the property furthest from the wellhead, and meets all of the State of Florida Hazardous Material requirements.

The Titusville Environmental Commission, TEC, recommended approval (5:2) with the conditions that the applicant, Wawa, provide a report to the City Council with the following information: life span of all fuel equipment, record of how many alarms go off at locations of the proposed owner, how many tank failures have happened, how many tanker spills, response time to system failures, and cleanup process.

TEC Members voting in opposition expressed concerns about toxins that do not go away and stated the tank should be above ground, and because there is no reconciliation to a system failure and there should be a backup tank to capture 110% volume if there is a system failure.

The Planning and Zoning Commission considered this request at their November 17, 2021 meeting and recommended approval as presented, 7-0.

Read more about the what else is happening at the meeting, and watch live on Tuesday at 6:30 here