FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - A fisherman from Fort Lauderdale was appalled to find the Tarpon River filled with raw sewage and dead fish in the wake of four sewer line ruptures in less than three weeks.
Jeff Maggio, who grew up in Fort Lauderdale, took a 7News crew on a boat ride along the river on Sunday.
“There’s no place like this in the world,” he said.
Maggio said he turned his passion for fishing into a career.
“I built my business on catching big fish, tarpon and snook, in these waterways,” he said.
But this trip is not a fishing charter.
“You would think that if there’s any issue on the water, any issues with contamination in the water, that would be our number one priority,” said Maggio.
Things began to change as Maggio’s boat headed up river.
“You see the water now?” said Maggio. “Straight sewage: toilet paper, tampons, doo-doo.”
The Tarpon River, a once thriving estuary, has been turned into a murky mess.
“Where it’s getting polluted the most is where the fish spawn,” said Maggio, “so you’re not going to see 100-pound fish floating up dead, but you’ll see millions of tiny fish and shrimps and crabs.”
The flow of raw sewage that has plagued East Fort Lauderdale neighborhoods has stopped for now, but those four ruptures left a big mess.
“At low tide, it’s going to get flushed out like a giant toilet, right into the system,” said Maggio.
Following the first break in Hector Park on Dec. 10, Maggio and others went out to see the impact on the fishery. What they found was alarming.
“Six dead fish per linear foot in the Tarpon River, and the Tarpon River is three miles long,” said Maggio, “and there’s two sides to it, so that’s six miles of dead fish.”
Aerators have been disbursed throughout the canal system to help, and crews have been working around the clock, even on Christmas, to clean up.
Nearly three weeks later, that cleanup continues.
“Whatever it’s going to take needs to take priority,” said Maggio, “and then, once they make it priority, then who’s being held accountable?”
This South Florida fisherman said accountability is essential to restore the waterways and hopefully prevent this contamination from happening again.
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