Twenty million gallons of Raw Sewage spilled into Biscayne Bay

 

 

Raw sewage spills into Biscayne Bay

 

Twenty million gallons of sewage spilled into Biscayne Bay on Saturday morning.

BY STEPHANIE GENUARDI

sgenuardi@MiamiHerald.com

It wasn't tar balls that kept swimmers from Biscayne Bay on Saturday. It was raw sewage.

Twenty million gallons of it seeped into the bay overnight after a 72-inch sewage pipe on Northwest 18th Avenue and 157th Street burst around 7 p.m. Friday, the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department said.

The sewage spilled into the Biscayne Canal for more than 12 hours before the pipe was capped around 7 a.m. Saturday morning, the department said.

Health officials issued a public advisory Saturday asking residents to stay away from swimming and recreational activities in the bay areas from the Julia Tuttle Causeway to the Oleta River Park.

Swimmers were also advised to steer clear of Bal Harbour Beach and Haulover Park, South Florida's famed nude beach, until the Department of Environmental Resources Management and Department of Health finish conducting water quality tests. The department estimated that could take until Monday.

The cause of the pipe rupture was not immediately known and was under investigation.

A map of the no-swimming zone is available at www.miamiherald.com.

News of the contamination comes as anxious South Floridians are tracking the Gulf of Mexico to see where the trail of dispersant-laced crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident will wash up. So far none has reached South Florida shores as that contamination has barely begun to saturate the Panhandle's shores.

Still, an environmentalist reacted with alarm to the news, which was broken to him by a newspaper reporter nearly 24 hours after the spill began. ``This is a nightmare,'' said Luiz Rodrigues, executive director of the Environmental Coalition of Miami Beach. ``It's horrible. It's another local environmental disaster.'' Rodrigues' group engages in beach-front clean campaigns. He said had he learned of the sewage spill earlier, he would have alerted fellow conservationists.

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