Power outages result in series of sewage overflows
Hurricane Irma has left a stinky and unsanitary aftermath with widespread sewage overflows from powerless pump stations and spills from overwhelmed treatment plants.
Authorities said their sewers are vulnerable to mishaps caused by storms; the region’s flat terrain requires thousands of pump stations to keep wastewater moving.
Each station and adjoining pipes can hold a significant amount of sewage, but if pumps are cut off from power, the sewage eventually overflows.
“For a lot of people, life is getting back to some semblance of normalcy and normalcy as we know it involves using water, taking showers, washing dishes,” Orange County utilities deputy director Todd Swingle said. “One of the messages we like to get out that while we are in this recovery mode, any assistance people can provide by minimizing water they use and send to the sewer system is helpful.”
Winter Park and Orlando are warning residents not to boat or swim in city lakes; the full extent of contamination may not be known for some time as crews are taking cursory notes on overflows and only larger local governments are providing basic detail to state authorities.
“Our priority is on recovery and getting all of the system functioning again as quickly as possible,” Swingle said. “As we do that, we record and take observations so that we can follow up with reports.”
The problem may not improve as power returns to homes and residents resume or increase water use, unaware their sewage may be winding up in an overflowing manhole.
Orange County’s utility department reported to the state that it has had “overflows from manholes and pump stations at multiple locations throughout its collection system.”
Swingle said specifics on those overflows would be available later.
During a public briefing Tuesday afternoon, Orlando Mayor Buddy
Dyer said: “Now, more than ever, we need citizens to conserve water. Our water reclamation system is working overtime.”
As Dyer spoke, sewage was surging from a dead pump station behind the Gallery at Mills Park Apartments on Mills Avenue in Orlando.
An apartment representative said a property-management company is responsible for the station; attempts to reach that company were not successful.
The flow swept across the popular cycling and walking path, the Orlando Urban Trail, onto South Lake Formosa Drive.
From there, the sewage flowed past the home of Dawn Hendrickson, who said she tried from early Monday to alert city authorities, hoping they would stop it or at least explain what was happening.
“There were people, dogs, pregnant women walking through this crap,” Hendrickson said. “All I knew was that it flowed down my street for two days.”
About 15,000 gallons of sewage was spilled, according to Orlando officials, who would not respond to requests for an interview. The city did provide written comments, including: “Our staff is also working with private lift [pump] station operators to help them fix issues and to keep them up and running as we are notified.”
The sewage flowing down Formosa Drive wound up in nearby Lake Formosa. That lake fronts the Mennello Museum of American Art and is connected to Lake Rowena, which fronts the city’s Harry P. Leu Gardens.
Health-warning signs were posted by the lakes and the Urban Trail, stating: “This water body is temporarily unsafe due to contamination.”
Even so, bicyclists and walkers ventured across the spill path, unaware of its presence.
By noon Wednesday, a private contractor, All Florida Septic, arrived to clean up the street, which was littered with drying toilet paper.
The crew doused the spill with disinfectant Simple Green, hosed it down and swept the muddy, sudsy water to the hose of a truck-mounted vacuum.
“We’ve got a lot of this going on now,” All Florida Septic manager Shane Kovacs said. Orlando had 11 overflows by Wednesday evening. Winter Park also struggled to prevent sewage escapes. “These overflows are unavoidable with massive power outages,” city spokeswoman Clarissa Howard said.
Her city’s recommendation: “Keep water usage to a minimum. If you filled your bathtubs, do NOT drain them yet as this will only add to further overwhelming the sewer system.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, the city of Orlando had more than 230 pump stations operating with normal power, while 20 were being run with generators.
Of Orange County’s more than 800 pump stations, 450 had lost power. By late Wednesday, about 170 were still being run with generators.
The Toho Water Authority had a “sewer-related issue” at 23 pump stations out of the 411 stations operated by the Osceola County utility. “At this time, an undetermined amount of raw wastewater discharged on the ground,” spokeswoman Mary Rose Cox said.
It wasn’t just the many pump stations where spills were occurring. An Oviedo sewage plant reported a spill during Hurricane Irma of 1.1 million gallons of raw and treated wastewater.
Orange County’s enormous sewage plant off Alafaya Trail has had several spills, including one of 120,000 gallons and another of 250,000 gallons. A county report said the sewage was pumped from ditches back into the plant.
“There were people, dogs, pregnant women walking through this crap. All I knew was that it flowed down my street for two days.” Dawn Hendrickson, about a sewage spill in Orlando