The City of Clearwater announced Friday that it released an estimated 4-5 million gallons of raw sewage into the impoverished North Greenwood section of the city during Hurricane Hermine. The hurricane did not hit Clearwater, but caused heavy rains. The data is for the first three days of September and reflects what was reported to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
65% of the raw sewage release occurred at the corner of Fairburn Avenue and Engman Avenue, which is located just a block away from the Homeless Empowerment Program (HEP) and right next to the HEP Thrift Store. No spills were reported in more affluent areas of the city.
The data provided by the city to the Guardian can be seen below, and it has some mistakes. “England St.” is actually “Engman St.”, and “Betty Lon” is “Betty Lane”. A picture of the manhole cover overflowing at the corner of Fairburn Street and Engman Street can be seen in this TBO.com article.
St. Petersburg announced three days ago that it released at least 20 millions gallons of sewage into Tampa Bay. St. Pete says it doesn’t know the exact amount because a flowmeter on its discharge pipe got “stuck”, apparently for days. Clearwater estimated the amount spilled when it’s measuring systems failed, but St. Pete made no such effort to estimate how much more than 20 million gallons was spilled.
This is a breaking story, please return for updates.
