FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - The City of Fort Lauderdale is putting the finishing touches on what they hope will be the solution to the city’s sewer problem.
City officials held a ceremonial valve turning in Fort Lauderdale, Thursday.
The project, valued at $65 million, is now underway as the city hopes to repair a seven-mile sewer transmission line.
“This is a historic day for the City of Fort Lauderdale. This is an amazing accomplishment,” said Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Steven Glassman.
The project took 18 months to complete. Crews used trenchless technology to avoid digging up roads in the city.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis said the new material, high-density polyethylene, will prevent breaks to the line in the future.
“The HDPE plastic pipe that replaced the older iron pipe offers a long lived solution that will be resistant to corrosion,” he said. “The new pipe has fewer joints and can flex with changing ground water tables to prevent breaks.”
The new sewer line was officially activated in July. However, officials wanted to make sure it was up and running before holding the completion ceremony.
Fort Lauderdale’s water and sewer infrastructure was in need of some major repairs and updates after the city had to deal with a series of sewer line main breaks that flooded neighborhoods.
“Fort Lauderdale took a bold approach to establish a redundant line using state-of-the-art, resilient materials that will allow us to provide reliable wastewater service to our neighbors and surrounding municipalities and to prevent the unfortunate incidents like the series of breaks that occurred beginning in December of 2019,” said Trantalis.
The mayor said the days of water main breaks and sewage in front yards are a thing of the past.
“I’d like to thank all of our Fort Lauderdale residents, especially those in Rio Vista, Victoria Park, Coral Ridge, who were all impacted by infrastructure failures and the construction work related to this project.
The new sewer line will not replace the old line but is entirely independent of it, according to city officials.
“We’re going to rehabilitate [the old line] and then maintain it going forward, so we have two lines,” said Trantalis.
Officials said having two lines will help prevent further interruption and problems in the future.
Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Ben Sorensen said there are several projects currently underway to strengthen the infrastructure.
“The City of Fort Lauderdale has invested in infrastructure like never before,” he said. “There’s hundreds of millions of dollars more that we are going to invest into our infrastructure to make this city the city you never want to leave when you come to visit it.”
Officials said they have pledged close to $200 million in infrastructure repairs over the next few years.
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