The 20 million gallons of raw sewage that spewed into Biscayne Bay from a broken pipe last weekend grabbed headlines but until the sewage treatment plant was built on Virginia Key in the 1950’s, raw sewage in the Miami River and Biscayne Bay was the norm.
A dirty little secret that threatened to derail the fun-in-the-sun tourist mecca. Not to mention sicken the residents.
At the time, 29 sewers dumped untreated sewage into the Miami River and another 41 sanitary sewers dumped directly into Biscayne Bay.
According to a 2000 environmental study of Biscayne Bay by NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the area between 79th Street Causeway and a line between Dinner Key and Cape Florida received a steady dose of pollution in high concentrations. The area was closed to swimming and residents were warned not to use the Bay. Quoting an engineer who observed the conditions in 1949, the reports stated:
A boat trip in the bay and out the main channel gives the visitor a chance to contrast the dark brown-gray polluted water near the city with the beautiful blue-green ocean water.
On the other hand, construction of the sewage treatment plant, while solving one problem, created another. One which we are still grappling with today.
Some say the construction of the Wastewater Treatment Plant on Virginia Key hastened the beginning of environmental degradation of the island, along with the decision to use Duck Lake and the interior land as a unlined dump (now closed), which at one point, received sewage sludge.
And the sewage (now treated) and emerging as “effluent” is still dumped into the water - this time a mile out to sea.
The pollution is out there. Still.
Resources:
http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/groups/mrc/river3.htm
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