No other water bodes affected, district staff tells FDEP
During three separate events — on Aug. 14, Aug. 28 and Aug. 29 — the Englewood Water District estimated that about 890,000 gallons of raw sewage flowed into an unused pond near one of its lift stations, with no other water bodies affected.
The cause of the spill in each situation was heavy rainfall, David Larson, the wastewater operations manager, has informed the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP).
Workers were able to recover about 380,000 gallons of the effluent, the reports said.
The affected structure was Holiday Ventures Lift Station No. 121, the reports noted. It stands on Haligan Way in Englewood, the reports pointed out. The site is northeast of the intersection of Dearborn Avenue and Pine Street, a map shows.
High Tide Technologies explains, “A wastewater lift station is a pumping station that moves wastewater from a lower elevation to a higher elevation. The benefit of using a lift station in a sewage collection system is that it saves a substantial amount of money in excavation costs, which involves digging for sewer pipes. Sewer pipes live underground, and digging trenches is costly. Installing a wastewater lift station at certain points in a gravity pipeline system saves on front-end construction costs without sacrificing efficiency or functionality. They play an integral role in moving sewage to a wastewater treatment plant.”
The Sarasota County Water Atlas, which shows the locations of county water gauges and rainfall amounts they document, said that 8.37 inches of rain had been recorded just west of the Englewood Sports Complex over the seven-day period through noon on Monday, Sept. 2, The Sarasota News Leader found.
The first lift station incident, which occurred on Aug. 24, began at 6:35 p.m. and was resolved by 9:50 p.m., that report said.
“The location of the lift station was once a wastewater plant that had a bermed pond,” each report explained. That pond normally is dry, the reports added. The lift station sewage flowed “into the old pond area,” each of the reports continued; the effluent “was completely contained in that area,” the reports said.
“Using an emergency backup pump,” the Aug. 24 report added, we pumped as much of the spilled wastewater, as we could, back into the lift station when flows subsided.”
Workers used lime to disinfect the ground where the wastewater spilled, the report noted. “We estimate about 230,000 gallons were spilled and 180,000 gallons were recovered,” that report added.
The Aug. 28 incident began at 4:15 p.m. and ended about 9:40 p.m., that report said.
Approximately 500,00 gallons overflowed from the lift station that time, the report pointed out, with an estimated 150,000 gallons recovered.
“We are using a submersible pump to pump the spilled wastewater back into the lift station and will continue until the old pond area is empty,” that report explained. “We are disinfecting the sides of the berm with lime as the water level goes down,” it added.
The Aug. 29 incident began at 4:10 p.m. and was resolved by 9 p.m., that report said.
“We estimate about 160,000 gallons were spilled and about 50,000 gallons have been recovered at this time,” it noted.
Once more, the report said, workers were using a submersible pump to transfer the effluent back into the lift station.