Winter Springs' Water Supply May Be in Crisis
"The smell is horrendous," some residents said, as the city of Winter Springs, Florida scrambles to find out what's going on with a water crisis that the city is yet to get to the bottom of. At the beginning of this year, a Channel 9 exclusive investigation found that over 10,000 gallons of raw sewage had been dumped or leaked into a private lake in Winter Springs that killed countless fish. The smell was described as something out of your nightmares. That was back in January of 2021.
Apparently, there had been a malfunction at the water treatment plant that the investigation uncovered.
Just the other day, a friend of mine who uses city water received a notice from the water company that there could be problems with the city's water supply. The notice came as a footnote to his billing statement. Similarly, local business owners have been complaining that black sludge has been coming out of the faucets, into toilet bowls and from the sinks of their establishments.
One business owner I spoke to under the condition of anonymity stated that she has to clean her sinks and toilets at her establishments several times throughout the day. It used to be a chore she did weekly.
The Florida State Department of Environmental Protection looked into the crisis and found 24 possible violations were being committed by the city early this month. According to ClickOrlando:
At the time, the then-mayor of Winter Springs blamed a faulty valve inside an old pipe under the old City golf course that leaked thousands of gallons of reclaimed water into the pond. The Mayor said no one currently at the wastewater facilities knew about the pipe.
But is this problem resolved? And if so, why are residents still receiving warning letters?
The city says the leak was caused by a valve malfunction that has since been repaired, but some residents are skeptical, shook by the terrifying experience of having raw sewage coming through their clean water pipes.
The city said that the plant is old and needs to be repaired, as the city now faces fines over the mishandling of the water crisis. This may turn out to be nothing, but it may turn out to be another Flint, Michigan in the making if the city can't get on top of whatever's going on at the water treatment facility.
What will the plant's repairs look like and when can we expect them to be finished?
As of the 19th of May, the State of Florida has finally begun to go over its water regulations. The state currently has no cyanotoxin screening, which are toxins that are linked to blue and green algae. So it seems the problem is statewide.
Apparently, the State of Florida has been mishandling its water, from the Tampa Bay area all the way up to Seminole County, and even on down to Lake Okeechobee, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis finally striking a deal with the Federal Government to clean up the latter.
Let's up we can get this together all across the beautiful state of Florida and can have clean, safe water for generations to come.