Port St. Lucie residents who live in neighborhoods near a 40-year-old wastewater pumping station could predict the sewage backups.
After heavy rains or especially, during holidays, just when the neighborhoods near Prima Vista Boulevard wanted to look good for the annual influx of visiting friends and relatives, the pump station would fail. Raw sewage would spew into streets, stream into canals and inundate yards. The latest spill happened on Christmas Day, filling the neighborhood with foul odors and leaving lawns covered with caked sludge and toilet paper.
That spill, one of at least six that has occurred in the same neighborhoods in the past 19 years, was triggered when a temporary bypass pipe at a lift station failed. About 1,500 gallons of raw sewage frothed up out of manholes along Prima Vista Boulevard, Naranja Avenue, Serenata Court and Floresta and Sandia drives. Waste filled yards and streets and poured into a nearby canal. Neighbors angered by the frequent failures and backups called the federal Environmental Protection Agency to complain, and local officials sent an employee out to sprinkle disinfecting lime around one of the manhole covers.
But finally, after years of the same scenario playing out again and again, the neighborhoods will get some relief. Though city utility crews have repaired the old pumping station and vacuumed spills for several years, officials finally budgeted a replacement unit, which crews will begin installing this month.
The Port St. Lucie City Council had to buy a house and lot to make room for the larger pumping station, and also had to demolish the house so construction can begin. Another spill Dec. 17 affected four homes on Westmoreland Boulevard, where raw waste backed up into the houses after an old underground pipe became clogged. The city has filed claims with the utility's insurance carrier to pay for damages to residents' carpets, walls and furniture and to pay for temporary housing for residents until the mess is cleaned up.
For the Prima Vista neighborhood, help is in sight. But the city's utility should review all its frequent and recent trouble spots, list them in order of urgency and start making repairs - well before the next holiday.
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