Feces-filled sewage flooded the streets. The city did nothing for 10 days, records show.
For ten days, untreated sewage leaked into flooded streets in the industrial zone of Opa-locka, a nearly bankrupt South Florida city so dysfunctional it has spent the last two years under a governor-decreed state of emergency. Each day on their way to work, hundreds of people slogged through the murky, foul-smelling water, unaware of the increased risk of dysentery, E. coli, and meningitis.
They say the city never told them the knee-high puddles were full of poop.
“It smells like sh••. It smells very bad,” said local business owner Ali Alvarez. But that’s pretty normal, he said. Stagnant water covers the area for more than half the year due to shoddy storm water infrastructure incapable of draining the area after it rains. Alvarez said he knew the standing water was a health risk but didn’t know the water at the time was actually full of fecal matter.
Miami-Dade County tests confirmed the early August flood water near the pump contained 50 times the amount of fecal matter that would close a beach. (One test showed 3,450 enterococci — bacteria — per 100 ml of water. Beaches close at 70.)
Read more: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-gardens/article217790205.html
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