An estimated 777,000 gallons of wastewater leaked from the pipe break on February 25 close to the Miami Canal alongside U.S. 27, lower than 500 ft from Hialeah Gardens High School.
“This resulted in wastewater entering the canal near the spill site of 11701 W. Okeechobee Road,” Miami-Dade County Water & Sewer Department spokesperson Jennifer Messemer-Skold tells New Times.
County employees responded to the break and sealed off the ductile iron pipe, which was severely broken by the contractor, Prince Construction, in line with a county report. The pipe was leaking out uncooked sewage for 2 hours earlier than the movement was stopped.
The break triggered an advisory to keep away from contact with the canal water for an 8.5-mile stretch from Hialeah Gardens extending east previous Miami Springs and into the canal house close to Miami Regional University. Signs have been positioned on the canal banks to warn folks to keep away from the contaminated water.
Messemer-Skold says that the county prolonged the preliminary boundary of the no-contact advisory as a security precaution.
“Staff from the Miami-Dade County Regulatory and Economic Resources Department are sampling the canal and once there are two consecutive days of compliant results, the advisory will be lifted, and the signage will be removed,” says Messemer-Skold.
The Olympic-pool-sized spill despatched contaminants downstream by the canal, which empties into the Miami River downtown. The leak equates to greater than a half-million rest room flushes, assuming the typical rest room flush is 1.5 gallons.
It’s one of many worst contractor-involved sewage leaks in Miami-Dade County in recent times. In a county report documenting contractor-involved leaks from January 2021 to March 2022, the largest spill was lower than half the scale of this one.
“Contractors are presupposed to be mapping out underground utility strains earlier than they dig. Unfortunately, these contractor-caused sewer breaks have been occurring as a rule,” Messemer-Skold says.
Under a decision adopted in September 2022, Miami-Dade kicked off an accountability venture pursuant to which the county releases six-month studies on harm to public sewer pipes attributable to personal contractors.
Last November, New Times chronicled a collection of incidents involving botched drilling operations, excavation initiatives gone improper, and different underground development work that ended with sewage pouring into streets or waterways.
Heavy sewage leaks can have a grave environmental affect, contaminating groundwater and polluting waterways with vitamins. Chronic or large-scale leaks have been blamed for algal blooms and fish and seagrass die-offs round Biscayne Bay.