Treated wastewater has been flushing into Fort Lauderdale’s Intracoastal Waterway nonstop since Monday night. The city’s economic engine Port Everglades, multi-million dollar yachts, and tourists taking the water taxi are all nearby.
Many locals who depend on the water for their livelihoods and fun are shaking their heads.
“This one is huge and fairly catastrophic,” said Jeff Maggio, a longtime fisherman.
“My first concern is the environment, the waterways, that’s what Fort Lauderdale is all about,” Chip Mayhugh said.
The Hurricane season is on. Our meteorologists are ready. Sign up for the NBC 6 Weather newsletter to get the latest forecast in your inbox.
According to the City of Fort Lauderdale, a subcontractor working on a project to prevent this sort of thing from happening unintentionally drilled into a 54-inch wastewater pipe at Port Everglades that goes from the George T. Lohmeyer water treatment plant out to the ocean.
In order to fix the pipe, the city says the wastewater needs to go through an emergency outfall, right under the 17th Street bridge.
“They’re a contractor we’ve used before. Unfortunately, whoever they hired to do the drilling didn’t map out the site well enough to know there was a 54-inch pipe underground," Mayor Dean Trantalis said. "How you miss that, I don’t know, but it happened and we are expecting full recovery."
Local
The mayor says the contractor, Ricman Construction, is taking full responsibility for the actions of the subcontractor, ASE Telecom and Data, and will pay for the costs and expenses related to this incident. These costs have not yet been assessed.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is aware of the incident.
Locals are wringing their hands.
“When stuff like this happens there’s always an excuse," Maggio said. "I don’t care what the excuse is anymore, the fact of the matter is we are dumping sewage into the Intracoastal waterway in the most premiere spot in the entire country."
Signs are up warning people not to go into the water in the immediate area.
“It’s not the best-smelling water, but it is not hazardous to health according to our department heads, so it is treated water," Trantalis said. "We will get it fixed quickly, hopefully done within next day or so."
Locals feel that warning should include a mile in each direction.
“The people at the sandbar yesterday sitting in the water and probably had no idea that they were 1/4 mile way from treated sewage running around them,” said Scott Koller, who grew up in Fort Lauderdale.
