The municipal golf course is required to bring its facilities up to the septic system standards set by the Department of Environmental Resources Management, including new structures to store equipment indoors and special recycling facilities for chemical mixing. The cost of the updates is estimated at over $1 million.

A large unexpected sewage bill for Miami Springs (Fla.) Golf Course to bring the septic system up to code was presented at a special city meeting on July 25, the Miami Herald reported.

“There are [Department of Environmental Resources Management] requirements in excess of $1 million that we just found out about,” City Manager Ron Gorland said at the meeting. “That was just discovered today.”

The money, Gorland told city leaders, was needed to bring the municipal golf course “up to minimum DERM standards,” which included a need for new structures to store equipment indoors and special recycling facilities for chemical mixing, the Herald reported.

The agency that some still refer to as DERM recently changed its name to the Department of Regulatory & Economic Resources, or RER, the Herald reported.

Internal RER emails, obtained by the Miami Herald through a public-records request, describe ongoing issues with two tanks at the course. One “tank”—which was not used for sewage—was a 10,000-gallon fuel tank buried at the golf course more than three decades ago, the Herald reported.

In addition to the tanks, a seven-page notice from RER described violations inside a golf-course maintenance building, the Herald reported.

“On November 3, 2009, a representative of [RER] inspected the above referenced facility and found evidence of industrial waste discharges to an on-site septic tank,” reads an RER email, dated April 2, 2010, to then-city manager Jim Borgmann.

The city was given 15 days to clean the tank and dispose of the waste, the Herald reported

In an October 2012 meeting, the city council discussed “violations with the fertilizer contamination and diesel tanks located at the golf course,” records show.

When asked how much it would cost to bring the golf course up to RER standards, Gorland said in an email, “We’re in discussions with RER and until they’re completed, we won’t know. No idea at this point.”

Gorland added that the $1 million figure he gave at the July 25 special meeting “should be enough if all has to be replaced.”