Feds file complaint, demand Miami-Dade County fix faulty sewer lines

Almost two decades after the EPA imposed the biggest fine at the time
on the county for ignoring the Clean Water Act, the feds are back and
talking to Miami-Dade leaders, this time about repairing miles of faulty
pipes that carry raw sewage.

By CHARLES RABIN AND CURTIS MORGAN
crabin@miamiherald.com

Miami-Dade County's 7,500 miles of sewage lines are in such decrepit
shape and rupture so frequently - sometimes spilling raw waste into
waterways and Biscayne Bay - that federal environmental regulators
are demanding repairs and upgrades that could cost upwards of a billion
dollars.

Authorities from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the
Department of Justice and Florida Department of Environmental
Protection met Wednesday morning with leaders at County Hall to begin
what figures to be a lengthy and expensive negotiation for Miami-Dade.

John Renfrow, director of Miami-Dade's Water and Sewer Department,
acknowledged the string of major ruptures that have plagued the
county's sewage system in recent years, saying the aging network
is "being held together by chewing gum." He added he has sought more
money to fix the leaks for a long time.

The price tag, though still uncertain, will easily reach the hundreds of
millions and could top $1 billion based on past repair projects. The
massive overhaul almost certainly will mean rate hikes for hundreds of
thousands of residents who have historically paid some of the lowest
fees in the state.

"We would like to think there's state and federal assistance," said Doug
Yoder, Water and Sewer deputy director for regional compliance. "But
this is ultimately going to come back to rates. It will require our rates
go up, either to generate cash or to pay bonds back."

The federal complaints are sketched out in a 78-page draft consent
decree claiming Miami-Dade County has violated sections of the Clean
Water Act, along with terms and conditions of its National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System permits. The report doesn't detail specific
failures, but said state and federal environmental protection
agencies "have inspected Miami-Dade's WCTS [wastewater collection
treatment system] and WWTPs [wastewater treatment plants] and
have discovered a number of improper management, operations, and
maintenance practices."

Miami-Dade has suffered at least three major sewer pipe breaks the
past three years, and a recent internal report shows that three sections
of 54-inch pipe under the bay, leading to the Virginia Key water
treatment plant, are so brittle they could rupture at any time. Renfrow
told The Miami Herald earlier this year that a break in that pipe, which
carries 25 million gallons of raw sewage each day from Surfside, Miami
Beach, and Bal Harbour, could be "catastrophic."

He said it would mean "you'd have to close down the beaches and it
would be an environmental mess."

Aging sewer lines are not a problem unique to Miami-Dade. The EPA
estimates there are 240,000 line breaks across the country each year as
governments struggle to find revenue to repair sewage systems that in
some cases are 100 years old. Fixing the nation's sewer line ills could
exceed $100 billion, the EPA noted.

Though the EPA wouldn't comment directly on the complaint, the agency
seems to be focusing on the Virginia Key line and several other pipe
lines that have broken the past few years. The county's system, built in
the 1920s, last underwent major repairs in the 1970s.

The last time Miami-Dade was hit with a consent decree in 1996, it paid
a $2 million fine, at the time the largest penalty paid to the EPA for
Clean Water Act violations. Unlike the current decree, which is looking
at old faulty pipes, the previous probe focused on the county's lack of
capacity to drain water overflows. In the 1990s, overflows and spills
into the Miami River, Biscayne Bay and canals were mostly due to the
system's inability to handle big rainstorms.

Since then, the county has spent nearly $2 billion upgrading its system,
from a $600 million overhaul of the water treatment facility in South
Dade, to repairing more than 500 pump stations, to retrofitting
thousands of homes with low-flush toilets. Water flow has been
reduced by about 12 percent, or close to 100 million gallons a day.

Yet, the federal government maintains, Miami-Dade must spend billions
more because over the past decade miles of aging pipeline crisscrossing
the county are breaking with increasing frequency.

"The system is getting old," said Bertha Goldenberg, the water and
sewer department's assistant director.

Adding to the worries, engineers have linked many of the worst breaks
to defective pipe built by Interpace, a now-defunct company whose
products were widely used in the 1970s. Now, some are failing decades
earlier than expected. Over time, steel reinforcement wires inside the
concrete pipes have corroded, broken and failed.

Recent breakdowns have occurred in Hialeah - where a 54-inch main
break left a giant sinkhole - in Northwest Dade, where a 72-inch pipe
burst and leaked almost 20 million gallons of sewage into a canal
leading to Biscayne Bay, and in Miami Lakes, where a bus got stuck in a
sinkhole after a 12-inch pipe broke. Fixing the system can be taxing, as
groups of workers head out at night to one of the county's 1,041 pump
stations, then insert machines with mini cameras to run through the
pipes in search of cracks or tears.

Perhaps the most infamous sewage rupture in recent memory occurred
in 2000, when the line from Government Cut to Virginia Key was
accidentally ruptured when contractors installing new boatlifts at Miami
Beach Marina drilled through it. The resulting gusher of raw sewage cost
$2.5 million to repair and the stinking slick closed surrounding waters
for days.