Nothing like sewage on the streets to get your attention.
After a series of sewage spills in December, residents want to know why Fort Lauderdale waited so long to replace its crumbling network of sewer pipes — and why the city had been raiding the water and sewer fund to the tune of $20 million a year for nearly a decade to balance the operating budget.
The answers came Thursday during a Town Hall meeting hosted by Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis.
“No one — not me, not the city manager, not the city commission — is happy about what happened in December,” he told a packed room. “But the fact is we have made major strides after inheriting an untenable situation. The issues we are now addressing did not occur overnight and cannot be fixed overnight.”
Ralph Zeltman, a retired engineer who serves on the city’s infrastructure task force, says he’s been trying to warn the city for years about the looming disaster.
“I’m not trying to play the blame game,” Zeltman said before the meeting. “But they should have listened and taken some action. Even when [former Mayor Jack] Seiler was there, they didn’t seem to understand they have major problems.”
A consultant’s report released in April 2017 estimated Fort Lauderdale would need to spend $1.4 billion over the next 20 years fixing and replacing its water and sewer pipes. The report also warned that parts of the city’s water-sewer system were on the “brink of failure.”
On Thursday, Trantalis told the crowd that when he was elected mayor in March 2018, the commission was “burdened with a management team that was in total denial” of the failing infrastructure.
“They abandoned water and sewer master plans — including the replacement of the 54-inch sewer main that runs through the core of the city,” he said.
That 1970s-era pipe was the same one that broke on Dec. 10 and again on Dec. 20, spewing millions of gallons of sewage in the streets of Fort Lauderdale’s Rio Vista neighborhood and the nearby Tarpon River.
On Thursday, Trantalis faulted the prior administration for raiding utility funds that could have been used to replace pipes before they fell apart.
“This shell game took $20 million a year that should have been earmarked for utility maintenance and upgrades,” he said. “In all, they drained $120 million in reserves.”
Critics have urged the city to stop the practice cold turkey, but Trantalis says that would have been a shock to the budget.
That’s why commissioners agreed to “wean” the operating budget from its reliance on utility money over a four-year span, the mayor said.
A few in the crowd cheered when City Manager Chris Lagerbloom said he hopes to stop the practice by next budget year — a year early.
Trantalis also detailed all the work now underway to replace the city’s underground pipes and what remains to be done to avoid future spills.
“We expect an assessment of the entire sewer force main system to be completed by March,” he said. “We will no longer be blind to where our problems are or the degree of their severity.”
Some are worried about when and where the next break will come. And city officials have been clear that they do expect more.
But on Thursday, the mayor promised that city officials have a game plan that will address every single neighborhood.
“In Fort Lauderdale, we are moving forward with a sense of urgency and will ensure that no section of the city is left behind,” Trantalis said. “We also are committed not to repeat past mistakes and defer vital maintenance.”
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.comor 954-356-4554
