FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - A Fort Lauderdale park is caught up in a stench after a nasty sewage spill, prompting officials to issue a precautionary waterway advisory while crews work to clean it up.
Cellphone video recorded by a resident in the area on Friday captured the sewage in George English Lake.
“Dude, that’s disgusting. Look at that,” a man is heard saying in the video.
City officials said crews were working on fixing a pipe collapse north of George English Park, located at 1101 Bayview Drive. It’s a job that requires removing sewage from this area and disposing of it into a different sewage pipe.
Alan Dodd, director of Public Works for the city, said that didn’t happen.
“[The truck driver] opened up a stormwater manhole, and the sewage went into that instead, which ended up going into the water at George English Park,” he said.
Dodd said cleanup is underway.
“Well, we have a contractor who is coming, they’ll be using chemicals agents to clean up the materials, so they’ll be going on the shoreline and using other methods to clean it up, Vactor trucks, to get as much out of the waterways as possible,” he said.
But until then, Dodd said, this water isn’t safe.
“We don’t want anybody going into the water, touching it until the cleanup is done and done testing to make sure that there is no bacteria that’s still present.”
Officials have also outlined several other areas where residents are being urged to avoid water-related recreational activities like swimming, fishing, jet-skiing, paddle-boarding, kayaking and canoeing.
The following areas include the following:
- North: North of NE 12th Street
- South: South of Sunrise Boulevard
- West:NE 20th Avenue
- East: Bayview Drive
Due to the park’s closure, business owners, like Lauren Ridley, who operates Blue Moon Adventures, are losing a lot of money.
“I already refunded over $1,000 for today,” she said.
Ridley said her paddleboard and kayak rental business is closed until further notice.
“We’ve been having probably the worst winter for weather, and it’s our first good weekend. The beach is actually full of people, and now we can’t operate,” she said.
The precautionary advisory will be lifted once officials obtain satisfactory test results. For more information, click here.
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