City: 1.6M gallons of water released in Charlotte County was not ‘raw sewage’

A Punta Gorda official has responded to claims that the Department of Environmental Protection is investigating the seepage of 1.6 million gallons of raw sewage into the Charlotte Harbor over the weekend.

“It was neither straight raw sewage nor into the harbor. This was strictly Helene-related,” said Dr. Melissa Reichert, Assistant City Manager Punta Gorda in a message to WINK News.

Punta Gorda’s wastewater treatment plant had reported the release to the DEP due to an influx of storm surge from Hurricane Helene.

“It was not an infrastructure failure,” clarified Reichert, “not a capacity issue, not a failure of the city. We had 60 pumping stations and 1293 manholes under water from storm surge. The master pumping stations on Henry Street was pumping full capacity for days. No failure. The amount of water inundating the system simply overcame what it can handle.”

The incident report from the DEP was a “Pollution Notice” that was attributed to have been filed by David Brooks, the Utilities Supervisor for the City of Punta Gorda.

The report read as follows: “City of Punta Gorda Wastewater Treatment Plant reports a wastewater release of raw sewage of approximately 1.6 million gallons from a master pump station due to storm surge,” said the report on letterhead from DEP. “The Charlotte Harbor has been impacted by the release. No clean up actions have been reported. The discharge began at approximately 18:00 on 9/26/2024 and ended at approximately 03:00 on 9/29/2024.”

Reichert clarified via email that “the DEP report form considers anything in the line raw sewage, there is not a box to check for stormwater inundation. FDEP is aware that this is storm surge inundation.”

There was some concern of the possibility that this water may pose a risk to water quality.

Don Duke, chair of the Department of Ecology in Environmental Studies at Florida Gulf Coast Univeristy’s Water School, told WINK News earlier, “The spill is caused by a storm surge of that nature. The spillage goes out into the ocean, not like it’s a trivial thing, it matters quite a lot, but we don’t use that water to treat for drinking water. This is a large portion of water that was not treated to kill those organisms that went out into the environment. We expect the salt water will die off reasonably quickly, but it is prudent to stay out of that water.”

Reichert, however, noted that the water was not polluted but a diluted overflow.

“The overflow was very dilute primarily harbor and rainwater, not ‘raw sewage’ as would be pumped on a normal day. The storm surge in the harbor impacted us,” she stated. “The system is not designed nor allowed to pump stormwater. It is a sanitary sewer system, not a combined/stormwater sewer system.”

She said the city will monitor the quality of the water and notify the public if a water advisory needs to be issued.

“The City is closely monitoring the situation to ensure public and environmental safety,” she said. “Sampling will be conducted in accordance with applicable state statutes, and updates will be provided as more information becomes available.”