South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Fiveash likely to fail in a storm
Water treatment plant needs millions to hold it together until a new site is built
Hurricane Dorian’s devastation of the Bahamas put Fort Lauderdale on notice that a severe storm could destroy the city’s decrepit water treatment plant and leave residents without a source of drinking water.
The city’s main Fiveash Water Treatment Plant provides water to more than 200,000 residents, but it is in such bad shape it probably wouldn’t survive a major hurricane, City Manager Chris Lagerbloom said. There is currently no sufficient backup if the plant were knocked out, he said.
“A Cat 5 hurricane that sits in any place for any period of time is going to basically change our landscape forever,” Lagerbloom said. “If one of those hits us, it’s more than just a debris management incident, it’s a we’ve got to figure out how to get drinking water to people because our water plant can’t withstand that type of wind.”
Fort Lauderdale is already facing tens of millions of dollars just to keep Fiveash working, with officials keeping their fingers crossed that the fixes will last long enough for a new plant to be built.
The city has neglected its water and sewer systems for years, leading to pipes breaking with increasing frequency — either because they’re getting old and brittle or due to contractors hitting them by mistake while doing underground work. The breaks have interrupted service for thousands of residents, forcing them to endure days of boil water orders.
Gerald Angeli, a member of the city’s infrastructure task force, is concerned the city’s water system is so compromised, more problems are bound to surface.
“What else is out there lurking that we don’t know about yet because it didn’t break yet?” Angeli asked.
Water system’s vulnerabilities
That’s what happened in June, when a major pipe break cut off the water flowing into Fiveash, which is near Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. The problem worsened when workers couldn’t immediately find the valves needed to reroute the water flow, and then couldn’t get the valves to work because they hadn’t been properly maintained.
The state Department of Environmental Protection is investigating whether the city violated state regulations and if it should be fined. While the initial pipe break was caused by a private contractor doing underground work for Florida Power & Light, the city’s trouble finding the valves and their failure to work are seen as deficiencies in the city’s water system preventive maintenance program.
The break also exposed the vulnerability of the city to a major water shortage if the Fiveash plant is knocked offline. The whole city was affected, along with other cities receiving its water. Businesses shut down, faucets dried up and airconditioning failed in high rises needing the water for their cooling towers.
Lagerbloom said the city is awaiting the completion of a study this month that he expects will conclude it would cost as much or more to repair Fiveash than to replace it. An earlier study put the cost as high as $200 million to $280 million.
The city will consider
“A Cat 5 hurricane that sits in any place for any period of time is going to basically change our landscape forever.
ways of paying for a new plant, which might include a public-private partnership where a private company builds the plant and the city leases it back. Commissioners will also have to figure out where the money would come from, although it likely would mean increased utility fees charged to water customers.
A new plant would be in the same area of the city, but further west, closer to the Prospect well fields that supply the raw water to be treated, Lagerbloom said. Being closer to the well fields reduces the chance of piping problems cutting the flow of water to the treatment plant, as happened in July, he said.
The city will still have to put big bucks into Fiveash, to make sure it doesn’t fail before it can be substantially reinforced, rebuilt or replaced.
“We will have to continue to maintain the current plant that we have until we have a different one to replace it, because we can’t afford to go to bottled water,” Lagerbloom said. “These are real today issues that we can’t be talking about again a year from now.”
Water treatment repairs
Planned repair work is already delayed at Fiveash because prices came back much higher than anticipated. The city expected to spend about $32 million on repairs, while the bids came back at $47.3 million.
A new round of bids will be going out shortly, with the city requesting itemized costs for the different projects so it can choose which items to include with the budget available. Officials hope to select a contractor to do the work by the end of the year or early 2020.
Mayor Dean Trantalis said he wants the city to lay out this fall the next phase of water and sewer improvements, including a plan for future water treatment.
“We must take this work to the next level, and there is no time to waste,” Trantalis wrote in a letter to residents.
“By moving forward aggressively with improvements to critical infrastructure, we will be better prepared for major storms or accidents and can avoid the frequent problems that come with aging plants and pipes,” he wrote.