Lauderdale to step up water & sewer repairs
Crumbling pipes have let sewage foul roads, river
After months of delay, Fort Lauderdale officials this week said they’ll accelerate work to repair the failing water-sewer system.
Even as they did, raw sewage spilled into neighborhood roads and local waterways.
Declaring that watersewer system failures are approaching a “crisis” point, one Fort Lauderdale commissioner rebuked top city administrators for delays in completing repairs. Commissioner Bruce Roberts, who just a month ago dismissed a colleague’s concerns on the topic as “hyperbole,” threatened the city manager and city attorney with their jobs if significant progress isn’t made in six months.
“I think we’re losing the trust of the public,” said Roberts, who is running for
mayor in the spring city elections.
The Sun Sentinel reported last Sunday that the city is poised to remove another $16.2 million from the water-sewer fund and will have removed $106 million over a seven-year period that could have been spent on repairs. The money was spent on general city services, like parks and police, without raising the property tax rate. Money available for work — at least $80 million from four years of city investment — is sitting unused, the report highlighted.
The city’s deteriorating sewer pipes have gushed more than 20.6 million gallons of sewage into local waterways since January 2014, the Sun Sentinel reported in May. The spills continue. Early Monday morning, a cast iron pipe at 741 Bayshore Drive at the beach burst, pouring more than 100,000 gallons of sewage into the Intracoastal Waterway, according to a notification made to the state. The city issued a recreation advisory, warning against fishing, water sports or swimming in the sewagespoiled area.
On Wednesday morning, sewage flowed out of several manholes on Northwest 15th Terrace between Fourth and Fifth streets, with a small amount — about 500 gallons — reaching the North Fork of the New River, the city reported to state environmental regulators.
Later that night, 750 gallons of sewage seeped from manholes again, with about 150 gallons reaching the river.
On Thursday, a large sewer pipe whose contents are moving under pressure broke, allowing raw sewage to pool on a neighborhood road, Southwest Second Street. All told, 23,730 gallons of raw sewage spilled, records show. City officials said vacuum trucks sucked up 18,000 gallons. Some of the remainder spilled into the New River near the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. The city issued a recreational advisory for that zone.
A majority of commissioners this week instructed City Manager Lee Feldman to immediately address delays in repairing the aging system.
“The reality is we’re an older city with older utilities and older pipes and an older system,” Mayor Jack Seiler said, “but … we could do things to address that and we’re not doing it quick enough.”
“I got the message loud and clear,” Feldman responded. “Get them done quick. Go big, go fast.”
Commissioners agreed conceptually with the idea of spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming 10 years, starting with a $200 million bond issue they’d approve in January. The bond doesn’t need voter approval. Over 20 years, the city could spend between $800 million and $1 billion, Feldman said.
Roberts said the city also should consider ceasing its practice of removing millions of dollars from the water-sewer fund each year. The city should consider raising its property tax rate instead, he said. He said he also wants a hiring freeze, with all available money going toward sewer improvements.
“There’s no work more important for our city’s future,” Roberts tweeted after the city meeting.
Commissioner Dean Trantalis was often the lone voice complaining about what he considered a lack of progress and focus, and underspending on watersewer work.
“It’s very clear that we are underfunding the needs of our community,” Trantalis said at a meeting in August, when Roberts called his complaints “hyperbole.”
Roberts said he’s been asking about sewer improvement projects for months.
“We’ve been talking about this stuff for awhile,” Commissioner Robert McKinzie agreed.
“I agree with you, Bruce,” Seiler said. “These projects we’ve been talking about, these need to be rolled out.”
Feldman had responded to the Sun Sentinel report with a citywide statement assuring residents the system is — in the words of one consultant’s report — “wellmaintained, well-managed, and in good operating condition.”
But as pipes burst and sewage spills around them, city commissioners said they want Feldman to take a more aggressive stance.
“These things need to get done in a certain time,” Roberts demanded. “We can’t hem or haw anymore.”
Feldman said the city’s approach to modernizing the system will be on the scale of the WaterWorks 2011 program, a 10-year, $700 million effort that got most city residents off septic systems.
The work replacing old pipes and deteriorating parts will be paid for with rising water-sewer rates — 5 percent a year — charged to customers. The increases started in 2012.
Feldman said the city in January will select one company to manage a long slate of repairs the state is demanding as part of an enforcement action, or “consent order,” against Fort Lauderdale.