City says leak could take days to repair
Ruptured sewer main spewed waste on streets, yards
The massive sewage leak that has had residents holding their noses for two days and dodging toxic slime on the street likely will take several days to fix, Fort Lauderdale officials say.
A 54-inch sewer main, one of the city’s largest, ruptured shortly after 10 a.m. Tuesday, spewing sewage through the Rio Vista neighborhood near the 1000 block of Ponce de Leon Drive. Crews worked overnight, digging underground to find the leak. But by late Wednesday, they had not yet pinpointed the exact location of the break.
That’s partly because they’re trying not to cause another one that could be even worse, Mayor Dean Trantalis said.
“They know the general area of where the break is,” Trantalis said. “They’re afraid to get too close to the source of the break in the pipe. The concern is if they dig away at the ground around the pipe, there’s nothing holding the pipe together there and it might explode.”
Now the race is on to find a manufacturer that can do the specialized work of building the equipment needed to save the day. The entire process could take as long as seven days.
“We have to find a company to do the fabrication, put the materials on a plane and fly
them here,” City Manager Chris Lagerbloom said. “Whoever can build them the fastest and get them here the fastest we’ll go with. We want to have everything in place to make the repair before we start moving dirt.”
In recent years, Fort Lauderdale has gone from one crisis to another as the pipes that make up the city’s underground water and sewer system fail after years of neglect. City officials suspect this week’s pipe break was caused by fatigue from nearly 50 years of use.
“We are now paying the piper for so many decades of neglect,” Commissioner Steve Glassman said. “It’s a tough race to be in. No matter how much we do we’ll never catch up.”
Commissioners had approved a $19 million project last week that likely would have prevented Rio Vista’s dirty deluge.
A stream of smelly sewage has flowed for days, dumping toxic waste into streets, yards and storm drains that lead to the Tarpon River.
Just how many gallons of toxic waste has been spilled remains a mystery for now.
City officials are required to report sewage spills to the state. More than 100,000 gallons of raw sewage had been spilled by
Tuesday afternoon, according to official estimates.
That number has since climbed substantially, but Fort Lauderdale officials aren’t expected to provide a final tally until they can pinpoint the exact location of the break in the cast-iron pipe, said Jon Moore, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
On Wednesday, an environmental contractor began cleaning up and disinfecting streets, sidewalks and driveways, a city official said.
It couldn’t happen soon enough for Pam WorksMcCarthy, who lives in the midst of the main flood zone on Ponce de Leon Drive.
“I was literally a prisoner in my own house yesterday,” she said. “It was downright pungent. It’s not as bad today. I just want them to clean the damn street. There’s this thick sludge in my driveway and up the street.”
Works-McCarthy can no longer walk her Jack Russell terrier down the street. She has to drive her over to a clean street.
“I don’t want her tracking that sewage in the house,” she said. “It’s gross. It’s raw sewage.”
Her neighbor Kathy Diaz is equally anxious to see her street free of toxic waste.
“I have slime under my cars on my driveway,” she said. “I see sewer bugs hovering. There’s this gray matter everywhere, and it smells.”
Diaz also worries about the fish and other marine life in the Tarpon River.
“The [sewer] water is flowing right into the Tarpon River,” she said. “And the river is brown.”
Contractors hired by the
Commissioner Steve Glassman
city are doing what they can to mitigate the environmental impact to Tarpon River, said Ben Sorensen, a Fort Lauderdale commissioner who lives in Rio Vista.
It’s too soon to say whether homes and cars have been damaged by the spill, the mayor said.
City officials can’t say whether anyone has gotten sick, but Trantalis warned people to steer clear of the area if they can.
“When I walked away from the site [on Tuesday] my eyes were burning and I was wheezing,” he said. “I caution people from walking in the area. The air itself may have toxic fumes.”
Drinking water has not been affected by the leak, but city officials are advising people not to swim, fish or jet ski in nearby Tarpon River.
Ponce de Leon Drive will remain closed between Southeast Ninth Avenue and Southeast 12th Way.
Vacuum trucks and portable pumps have been in place for two days to help clear the streets of sludge.
“We have put every vacuum truck we can find to come suck up sewage and insert it back into a gravity main so it goes to the plant,” the city manager said. “Everything else we can’t suck up into a truck is being dumped into the Tarpon
River.”
Crews hope to create a bypass so the sewage being pumped into the river can be routed back into the city’s wastewater pipes, Lagerbloom said.
By Thursday morning, nine aerators are expected to be in place to boost oxygen levels in Tarpon River. The devices break down organic matter and help control odor.
The Tarpon River flows into the New River and the New River connects to the Intracoastal. Does that mean the river of sewage could make it to the New River and beyond?
“It has that potential,” Lagerbloom said. “We’re doing water sampling.”
Lagerbloom couldn’t say Wednesday whether the toxic waste could impact the Winterfest Boat Parade on Saturday.
“Too soon to push panic button,” he said.
Until the leak is sealed, residents throughout the city can help stem the flow of sewage by flushing their toilets less and not running their washing machines or dishwashers, the mayor said.
The broken sewer line runs from the sewage treatment plant to the Coral Ridge Country Club and serves northern Fort Lauderdale, Wilton Manors and Oakland Park.
“We ask neighbors throughout the city to reduce water use to keep the volume of sewage as low as possible,” Trantalis said.
Residents can get updates by calling Fort Lauderdale’s 24-hour hotline at 954-828-8000. that