One year later, state fines Fort Lauderdale over water crisis

FORT LAUDERDALE – After failing to keep up-to-date maps of its water pipes, Fort Lauderdale is now facing a sanction from the state in the form of a $19,100 fine.

The problem came to light a year ago when an FPL subcontractor drilled a 6-inch hole into a main water supply line, sending the city into panic mode. Crucial water pipes nearly ran dry in midJuly, forcing hundreds of businesses to close and thousands of customers to boil their water for days.

The subcontractor drilled the hole but it was Fort Lauderdale’s failure to keep an accurate map of its own network of pipes and valves that prevented crews from quickly isolating the damage and fixing the problem, say officials with the state Department of Environmental

Protection.

Instead of paying the fine, Fort Lauderdale has agreed to spend $600,000 on flood mitigation in Rio Vista’s Hector Park.

Last year’s crisis left 250,000 residents and businesses without water in Fort Lauderdale, Davie, Port Everglades, Tamarac, Oakland Park, Wilton Manors, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and Sea Ranch Lakes. Without water or working toilets, restaurants, hotels and malls closed. So did the courthouse. Residents, told to buy bottled water or boil it from the tap, fretted over whether their airconditioners might conk out with no water to run them.

The July 17 incident exposed the fact that Fort Lauderdale had failed to keep up-to-date maps of the pipes and valves that control the flow of water from the wellfields to the treatment plant, state officials said.

State officials argued the fix would have come much sooner if only the city had better maps and had made sure its network of valves worked.

Crews were forced to use sonar equipment to find a buried control valve because the city didn’t know where it was. To plug the hole bored into the water main, they used a tree trunk as a cork. The log

and pipe were then encased in concrete, buying the city time to make permanent repairs.

Once they found the control valve, they discovered it didn’t function properly. That meant crews could not seal off the broken pipe and divert water to the backup pipe. The city was forced to shut off pumps from the wellfield, leaving all of its customers with only the water left in the pipes.

Fort Lauderdale is now under orders from the state to map all of its underground water pipes and control valves within three years, according to a July 24 letter from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

“The state came in and said, ‘You could have turned the pipe off quicker if you had a better idea of where the valve was,’” City Manager Chris Lagerbloom said. “Years ago we got rid of the crew that went around and exercised all the valves, meaning they would go around and turn the valves on and off and make sure they worked. We brought that crew back so we could start doing the valve exercising program again. We are in process of identifying where all those valves are.”

The state also cited Fort Lauderdale for failing to notify agency officials about three water main breaks in 2019 that led to boil-water orders.

The $19,100 fine includes a $5,000 civil penalty: $1,000 for each water main break not reported to the state; $1,000 for failing to keep accurate maps of the pipes; and $1,000 for failing to adequately respond to an emergency.

“They dropped the ball in not reporting it to the state,” said Ralph Zeltman, a retired county engineer who now serves on the city’s infrastructure task force.

The state also rapped Fort Lauderdale for not keeping an up-to-date map of its water main control valves and not routinely checking the valves to make sure they work.

“The state found the city negligent in not maintaining their water main valves,” Zeltman said. “That valve was buried. They couldn’t find it. They couldn’t shut it off because they couldn’t locate it. They had to find out where it was. When they found the valve, they couldn’t close it.”

Public Works Director Raj Verma says the city has water pipe maps but he’s unsure about their accuracy. A five-man crew is mapping every control valve in the system.

“The state wants to make sure we have updated maps for the valves so we don’t get into that situation again,” Verma said.

Verma estimates it might take three years to get the job done.

“Many of the valves are buried,” he said. “It’s very time consuming. And it cannot be given to a consultant because the consultant does not know the geography of the city. They’d be shooting in the dark.”

Verma joined the city in January 2020 and could not say why those three water main breaks were not reported to the state.

“It fell through cracks,” he said.

The city manager says it was not an attempt to “put one over” on the state.

“We just missed it,” said. “It was an error on our part.”

Fort Lauderdale spent more than $500,000 repairing the water pipe that was damaged by a Florida Power & Light subcontractor. The city is now suing FPL in an attempt to recoup that money.

“We filed a lawsuit in the last 14 days,” Lagerbloom said. “FPL applied to do a directional drill to put a powerline underground. We approved that and said you can drill there. They went to a different location and drilled there. They asked to drill in one place and drilled in a completely different place.”

An FPL spokesman declined to comment, saying the company does not comment on pending litigation. the

Lagerbloom just