Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Irma spreads smelly sewage across S. Florida
As hurricane wind and rains soaked Miramar in southwest Broward, a huge oak tree with a root ball 4- to 5-feet-long tipped.
The vibration cracked a sewer pipe underground, and for more than a day, raw sewage poured out over Old Miramar Parkway into a homelined canal at 132nd Avenue.
The estimated 300,000-gallon spill was the worst of the Hurricane Irmarelated raw sewage spills in South Florida, but not the only one.
South Florida cities were fouled with more than 736,000 gallons of raw sewage during and after the storm. State and local officials say it’s an unfortunate but common side effect of the relentless rain and rampant power outages that a hurricane inflicts.
In South Florida, spills were reported in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, Jupiter, Riviera Beach, Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Pompano Beach, Oakland Park, Fort Lauderdale, Plantation, Sunrise, Margate, Miramar and Davie, Hollywood, Miami Gardens, North Miami, Miami, Sweetwater and Hialeah, starting the day the storm began and continuing for more than a week.
In addition to raw sewage, some spills of treated wastewater were reported. In MiamiDade County, an enormous amount of partially treated wastewater — 6 million gallons — spilled into Biscayne Bay at
the Rickenbacker Causeway, the county reported to the state Department of Environmental Protection. The cause: “Power outage due to Hurricane Irma.” In Fort Lauderdale, a oneminute power outage at the sewage plant allowed 86,000 gallons of treated wastewater to spill into the Intracoastal Waterway.
A Florida law that went into effect in the summer requires utilities to report spills to the state within 24 hours; the law’s aim was to increase public awareness of sewer spills in the state. The reports contain preliminary estimates of how much was spilled, and why.
In more than 60 reports to the Department of Environmental Protection from South Florida, power outages, falling trees or branches, and other Irmarelated troubles were blamed for allowing smelly, untreated sewer water to spill into waterways and other places where it doesn’t belong. Other cities in Florida had the same experience, particularly on the west coast, which took the brunt of the storm.
A state DEP spokeswoman said the agency hadn’t determined whether any of the spills could have been prevented.
“Our first priority is always to work with utilities to identify any releases and get them stopped,” spokewoman Jill Margolius said in an email. She said the agency will gather more information before determining whether any “corrective action is needed.”
The DEP reminded sewer system operators before the storm to prepare for spills, a common side effect.
“The threat that hurricanes and other storms pose to wastewater treatment facilities is ... a direct threat to the environment and public health,” the state’s eight-page guide to sewer operators says.
In Miami, on Miami Springs Drive, a caller to the state reported “dead fish everywhere and feminine products in the water.”
Plantation reported numerous small spills, 5 gallons each, after power outages knocked out pump stations, whose job is to keep sewage moving along in the pipes. Without the pumps, the sewage backs up, overflowing from manholes at ground level. A downed tree in West Palm Beach led to a 2,000 gallon spill into a storm drain. In Pompano Beach, 40,000 gallons of sewage spilled into an unspecified local waterway, due to an Irma power outage, state records say.
In Miramar, site of the largest raw sewage mess, the wastewater streamed from the broken pipe for more than a day, soaking front yards, seeping into the canal and requiring a large cleanup.
Homeowners along the canal were notified with city fliers hanging on their doorknobs, and were invited to participate in a telephone town hall Wednesday night. Several said they were worried their water wells could be contaminated.
City officials said they had “concerns” about only two of the private drinking water wells they tested, and planned to disinfect them.
“There’s still fecal matter that seems to be floating in this canal,” one caller named Carlos said.
Miramar utilities director Jody Kirkman said the canal water had already dropped to a safe threshold of fecal coliform, the intestinal bacteria the city tested for.
Fort Lauderdale’s sewer system, which drew state regulators’ attention because of its numerous large spills in the past few years, performed well, city officials said. Though some homeowners complained of sewage backing up into their toilets and showers, or seeping from manholes in the street, there were no large raw sewage spills reported in Fort Lauderdale during or after the storm.
Spokesman Matt Little credited the city’s preparedness.
“Generators, tanker truck deployment, control of pressures, talented operators and coordination with Florida Power & Light (FPL) all collectively played a role,” he said in an email.
Even the minor spills are distressing, though, to those living around them.
At a subsidized housing development in northwest Fort Lauderdale, sewage bubbled for several days from a manhole in the street, development and facilities Director Scott Strawbridge with the Fort Lauderdale Housing Authority said.
“I had to go out and console some of the families who live there, the stench and all,” Strawbridge said. “We’re still not really sure what we or someone should do, if anything, to clean up our park before we play in it again.”
Strawbridge said he was “kind of sad to see the poop flowing all over the grass,” but he understands the system was “overtaxed” by Hurricane Irma.