Sewer crisis in the state of Florida: Aging infrastructure and storms contribute to massive spills
By Josh Salman, Jennifer Borresen, Daphne Chen and Dak Le for GateHouse Media
[dropcap]M[/dropcap]ore than 900,000 gallons of raw sewage flowed into Sarasota Bay after a violent December storm forced open a city pipe.
Summer rain in Daytona Beach and equipment failure in Jacksonville each prompted more than a quarter-million gallons of human waste to spill from sewers last year.
Treatment Plant Wastewater Refinery Aerial Photo by MaxPixel.
In Boca Raton, a pressurized pipe gushed out nearly 50,000 gallons of untreated wastewater, while another 55,000 gallons spewed from a DeFuniak Springs manhole into nearby Bruce Creek.
These sewage spills are emblematic of failing wastewater systems across Florida, which is grappling with aging infrastructure and no clear solutions for funding a fix.
During the past decade, deteriorating sewers have released 1.6 billion gallons of wastewater, much of it polluting the state’s estuaries and oceans, according to a GateHouse Media analysis of state environmental data.
More than 370 million gallons of that was completely untreated.
Experts say the sewage has fed the blue-green algae blooms wreaking havoc on Florida estuaries and exacerbated red tide in the Gulf of Mexico. Amid historic growth, environmentalists fear it will only get worse.
