City demands FPL, contractors pay for pipe
Damaged water line cost more than $500K to fix
A 4.5-inch hole drilled into one of Fort Lauderdale’s main water supply lines in July ended up cutting off water to thousands and costing more than $500,000 to fix. Now the city says those responsible for the damage must pay up.
The crisis started when companies doing underground work for Florida Power & Light Co. at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport punctured a pipe that carries raw water from a city wellfield to its Fiveash
Water Treatment Plant.
Besides FPL, City Attorney Alain Boileau also has sent out letters seeking payment to: Florida Communication Concepts Inc. and Infratech, two FPL subcontractors; GEO & YUS Corp., the company that did the actual boring for FCC; and Amerisure Mutual Insurance Company, which insures FCC.
The city has not received replies yet to the letters sent in September, Boileau said.
FPL is not commenting on the city’s letter nor two lawsuits that have been filed against the company by restaurants, hotels and other businesses that lost money due to the water in
terruption, spokesman Bill Orlove said.
Geovanis Rivera, president of GEO & YUS that did the drilling, was on site the day of the incident. He said he relied on FCC to get the appropriate approvals and provide correct information.
“I think I’m not responsible,” Rivera said when contacted by phone. “I just tried to do my job.”
Residents woke up July 18 to city alerts warning a major water pipe had ruptured and there would soon be no drinking water available. The city went into emergency mode, stores and offices closed, air conditioning stopped working in many highrise buildings and the city set up bottled water distribution sites.
A temporary fix — including using a small tree trunk to cork the hole and stop water from gushing out — was completed within a day.
The city’s 200,000-plus water customers endured several days or more of boiling their tap water because of potential contamination. The coverage area included all or parts of Oakland Park, Wilton Manors, Port Everglades, Davie, Tamarac, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Sea Ranch Lakes and Lauderhill.
FPL’s main subcontractor for the job, Florida Communication Concepts, used a service called Sunshine 811 to alert utilities that might have lines in the area about its planned underground work so that the utilities could mark where their lines are so they wouldn’t be hit. Fort Lauderdale officials said the city had no lines that would be affected.
But Fort Lauderdale said the address FCC gave to the 811 service, 2525 NW 55th Court, was not where the work was done. Instead, officials said the break occurred near 2417 NW 55th Court, 200 feet north and 50 feet east of the site FCC provided.
The 811 ticket also said there would be no directional boring, but it’s that type of boring that punctured the city’s water pipe, officials said.
Boileau has decided not to prosecute a violation notice issued to an FCC supervisor the day of the incident.
Boileau said he declined to take action against the supervisor because he did not do the actual boring. Also, he said the city’s recourse is more against the company itself and the only possible penalties against the supervisor were either a $500 fine or up to 60 days in jail.
The city is on firm legal ground for getting repaid by the companies, Boileau said. FPL is responsible through an agreement with the city for fixing any damage done by one of its subcontractors. A city ordinance also call for responsible companies to reimburse the city for damage that leads to the city declaring a state of emergency.
“Whenever a local emergency is declared pursuant to this chapter, all costs incurred by the city in response to such emergency … shall be a charge against the party or parties responsible for the emergency,” the city ordinance says.
The city has put that cost at $558,271.