Charlotte County crews contain million gallon wastewater spill
Utility crews in Charlotte County worked around the clock last weekend when a pipe burst last Saturday, spilling 1 million gallons of wastewater on Loveland Boulevard.
Workers were able to clean up about 80% of the spill, but 200,000 gallons of wastewater seeped into the soil, according to a Florida Department of Environmental Protection notice.
The wastewater had been rerouted into a 20-inch pipe because the county is in the process of completing a major five-year project to bring flows into a much larger 48-inch pipe. Last Friday was a scheduled tie-in, and unfortunately when we went to do the tie-in, the pressure did not look right, the county s Utility Director Craig Rudy said. We called off the operation early morning Saturday and unfortunately during that time frame it built in pressure right by our plant and the force main blew.