We’re still a week away from Halloween, but Hillsborough County has already spilled a terrifying amount of dirty water during the month of October.
According to records from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), Hillsborough County has reported a total of 555,110 gallons of spilled wastewater so far this month. One massive spill accounts for 520,000 gallons alone.
On October 1, contractors with Smart Communications hit and broke what they thought was a water pipe at the intersection of Van Dyke Road and Van Dyke Farms Boulevard in Citrus Park. The contractors initially thought it was an irrigation leak, so the broken pipe wasn’t fixed until about 9 a.m. the next morning, when a Hillsborough County field tech determined that the spillage was indeed wastewater, and not irrigation water.
According to the FDEP report, 520,000 gallons of wastewater poured into a nearby retention pond, which was later cleaned and then inspected by the Environmental Protection Commission.
“We actually got pretty lucky that it has been a relatively dry month and the water level of the retention pond was so low,” said Wilkerson, Senior Media Relations Strategist with Hillsborough County.
The retention pond sits pretty close to a nearby neighborhood, but Wilkerson says that since the spill was completely contained in the pond there was no danger to the public.
“By law we have to post a notice with the FDEP within 24 hours,” added Wilkerson, who noted that the county filed their report within the legal time period, but did not send out a press release notifying the public because there was no immediate threat.
When asked why the suspected water line was left running all night, Wilkerson said this was a communication breakdown between the county and the contractor.
“It's never really happened before where someone calls in with incorrect information,” said Wilkerson. “Also, this is the first time where a contractor said they would get back to us, and they just didn't. We didn't chase down the contractor and go, ‘“Hey what did you find out?’”
The spill, which will cost Smart Communications a total of $6,000 to clean up, was so significant that it has changed the way Hillsborough County will react to similar situations in the future, says Wilkerson. “Now if someone calls in with a leak, we'll go investigate it regardless.”
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It’s important to note this was the largest spill in Hillsborough County so far this year by a longshot. “We had another one that was about 300,000 gallons back in June,” said Wilkerson. “It was in a very rural area so it went unnoticed for about three or four days. But these are certainly an anomaly.”
Besides these two spills, Wilkerson says that Hillsborough County has only had 16 spills that were more than a thousand gallons, which isn’t a lot for “a fast-growing county where everyone is poking holes in the ground.”
But even without this one giant half-million gallon spill, Hillsborough would still lead every county in Tampa Bay this month for discharged wastewater.
Just a week later, on Monday, October 7, a grease blockage in a gravity sewer managed by the City of Tampa on Harbour Island caused 6,980 gallons of wastewater to escape into Seddon Channel, which runs between Davis and Harbour islands.
According to the report, none of the wastewater from the October 7 Harbour Island wastewater spill was recovered.
Then, just two days later, a Verizon crew on Davis Islands accidentally punctured a hole in a sewage pipe connected to the City of Tampa’s Howard F. Curren Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, and an estimated 24,000 gallons were spilled into the same channel.
Though these two spills fall under the jurisdiction of the City of Tampa, environmentally speaking it’s still been a rough month for the county.
The area has since witnessed a 2,130 gallon wastewater spill on October 15. And, on Sunday, October 20, Hillsborough added another 2,000 gallon spill to its tally.
For some perspective, Hillsborough County’s more than half-million gallons of spilled wastewater in October absolutely dwarfs neighboring counties, with Pasco County showing 13,500 gallons, and Sarasota with another 6,800 gallons. Pinellas County wasn't innocent when it came to October wastewater spills, but the amount spilled was less than 1,000 gallons.
2019 has been a particularly bad year for dumping shitty water into Tampa Bay's ecosystem.
A report from Creative Loafing Tampa last August showed that local counties have already dumped 400,000 gallons of raw sewage into the Tampa Bay area this year.
The majority of this came from Pasco County, which is already responsible for an estimated 343,600 gallons of spilled sewage. Notably, this was almost all from one giant spill on May 4, at a New Port Richey utilities wastewater plant, where 300,000 gallons of untreated sewage leaked onto land and into the nearby Cross Bayou. Only half that was reportedly cleaned up.
It's also important to note that this August 2019 report only listed "sewage" reports, so combined with the most recent horrifying spills, it's safe to say Tampa Bay has already surpassed a million gallons of spilled contaminated water this year.
Of course, all of this should be concerning as the region is still recovering from a historically bad season of Red Tide. And, while sewage and wastewater do not directly cause toxic algae, authorities universally agree that it absolutely fuels the problem.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece has been update to include quotes from Chris Wilkerson.
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This article appears in Oct 24-31, 2019.