Tallahassee, Fla., May Need to Spend Thousands on Compressor Repair at Plant.

Byline: John Sevigny

Nov. 27--City officials may have to spend as much as $500,000 to rebuild a vapor compressor that "failed catastrophically" in the water treatment arm of the city's newest and most efficient power plant.

The breakdown at Purdom unit 8 has forced utility officials to dump thousands of gallons of water -- used to cool equipment at the plant -- back into the St. Marks River each day.

Water used in the plant is normally cleaned -- in a process involving the vapor compressor -- and then re used over and over so nothing from the facility has to be returned to the environment.

The water that's being discharged now came from the …