Water main ruptures, clouding Himmarshee Canal
A city contractor ruptured a water main in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday, flooding the street and clouding up the Himmarshee Canal.
City officials said a contractor was working on a sewer pump project at Southeast Sixth Avenue and Southeast Second Street, on the north side of the river, east of the U.S. 1 tunnel.
The contractor “inadvertently struck a water main that may not have been identified on the plans or adequately marked,” city spokesman Chaz Adams said in an email.
Before the valve could be shut off, the gushing water reached the Himmarshee Canal, which runs through part of downtown.
No boil water order was necessary.
City resident Jackie Scott saw the cloudy water and was among those wondering what happened.
“We’re used to seeing manatees and fish,” she said. “It’s extremely murky.”
The mishap comes on the heels of two other spills into downtown waterways.
Developers at five downtown construction sites were cited with warnings last week for allowing dirty runoff to reach storm drains that empty into the New River. The city began investigating after downtown residents shot videos and photographs of a milky cloud polluting the waterway.
Before that, in early August, the city shut down one of its own contractors near Southeast Second Street and Southeast Fourth Avenue for a similar offense. The river turned up cloudy, with an oily sheen.
The contractor was working on a street-improvement project for the city.