Fragile pipes need care
Commissioner says city faced a ‘perfect storm’ with water issues
Fort Lauderdale’s busted water pipes continue to be a headache for officials and residents, with one neighborhood enduring a boil-water order for at least nine days because of the most recent break.
Commissioner Steve Glassman said the city has faced a “perfect storm” recently, with years of neglect of the city’s water system combining with increased construction activity and contractor errors to punch more holes in its water system.
Commissioners last year approved a $200 million bond issue to fix the worst parts of the city’s failing water and sewer system, but those improvements will take years to make and will only cover a fraction of the total work needed.
Glassman said coordination between the city and contractors doing underground work needs to improve so that crews do a better job to avoid hitting unseen utility lines.
“I’m not satisfied with just the answers we’re getting now. I think we really have to do a deep dive on this,” Glassman said. “I don’t know why folks in a city can’t just wake up in the morning and expect to have clean water. It’s absurd.”
The most recent problems include:
A contractor drilled into a city water line July 17 that fed into its main water treatment plant near Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. The city basically had to shut down for a day as workers searched for a fix and the city’s reserves dried up. It included days of boilwater orders for the city’s 220,000 water customers, including many in surrounding cities.
Another water pipe ruptured July 21 in the 1400 block of East
Oakland Park Boulevard. That leak, caused by a cracked pipe, didn’t lead to a boil-water order, but it forced the shutdown of eastbound traffic on the road that Sunday afternoon as crews worked to fix the pipe.
A water pipe gave way July 24 on Las Olas Boulevard east of downtown. Between 2,000 and 3,000 customers had been under a boil-water since then as tests continued to show bacteria present in the drinking water. The city lifted the order for about half those residents Thursday, but others won’t be able to drink the water coming out of their taps safely without boiling it first until at least Saturday.
The executive airport break was worse because valves that should have allowed the city to reroute the water flow weren’t working. Crews ended up making a temporary repair to the pipe by cutting down a nearby pine tree, stuffing a portion of its trunk in the hole and then encasing the pipe and plug in concrete.
After repairing the valves and rerouting the water, crews made a permanent repair. They replaced a 16-foot-long section of the pipe, including a new valve and pipe fittings, at a cost of $173,000, city spokesman Chaz Adams said.
The city is still investigating the executive airport break, where Florida Power & Light contractor Florida Communication Concepts Inc. drilled a hole in the pipe. The contractor had called a statewide service for information about utilities where it planned to dig, but city officials said the address it gave wasn’t where it was actually working.
On the Las Olas Boulevard break, which the city is also investigating, it appears the initial damage may have been done by a contractor months ago.
“Based on its condition, it appears the pipe may have been damaged by a company doing underground directional drilling in the area during the past year,” Adams said. “The marks on the pipe indicate its structure was weakened making it more susceptible to a break.”
The city lifted the boil-water order Thursday for the Isle of Venice, Fiesta Way, Nurmi Drive, Lido Drive, San Marco Drive, Coral Way and Royal Plaza Drive.
The order remains in effect for South Gordon Road, Hendricks Isle, Mola Avenue, Isle of Capri, Bontona Avenue and Coconut Isle.
Tests of water samples taken in the area must come back clean for two days in a row for the order to be lifted. The city says its next update about the remaining precautionary order will come Saturday.
Adams said the Florida Department of Environmental Protection allowed the city to lift the order partially because two of three testing sites, those to the east, consistently came back clear, while contamination turned up again at a test site to the west in a Wednesday sample.
Adams said “given that the water samples from two sites located east of where the water main break occurred had passed for several days in a row, it was determined that the precautionary boil-water notice could be lifted for those streets.”
However, he said “it is unlikely that the precautionary boil-water notice could have been lifted any earlier as, typically, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection requires that all sites pass concurrently in order for a notice to be lifted.”
Residents in the affected area are encouraged not to use tap water for drinking, cooking, making ice, brushing teeth or washing dishes without boiling it first. A rolling boil of one minute is sufficient, officials said. As an alternative, bottled water can be used.
The city is continuing to flush fire hydrants in the affected area to clear out any remaining contaminants. It will take water samples Thursday and Friday. Those results should be available Saturday morning to determine if the order can be lifted.