Fort Walton Beach and Valparaiso officials appeared before Okaloosa County commissioners Tuesday, vigorously defending their handling of three sewage spills that occurred July 6.
County Public Safety Director Dino Villani also unveiled a new procedure designed to ensure the public will be notified promptly after future spills.
County Commissioner Nathan Boyles had requested that city representatives brief the board on how the spills occurred and why it took almost two days to alert the public to possible contamination in Santa Rosa Sound and Tom’s Bayou.
“Each agency in the process is responsible for carrying out their role in responding to emergencies,” Fort Walton Beach City Manager Michael Beedie said. “The utilities did this.”
Beedie and Valparaiso Public Works Director James Valandingham said they followed proper protocol by relying on a state notification system that automatically sends emails to the local health department alerting it to a spill.
City officials have said it’s Okaloosa County Health Department’s responsibility to notify the public and that they are not authorized to issue health advisories of any kind.
Beedie told commissioners the Health Department received the email from the state shortly after the spill was reported. He said his staff also tried to reach the Health Department but couldn’t because it was a weekend.
“Public service does not stop at 5 o’clock in the afternoon during the week or on weekends,” he said. “With today’s technology, it’s easy for instantaneous access and communication.”
Health Department Director Dr. Karen Chapman did not speak at Tuesday’s meeting but said later that she doesn’t require her staff to check emails 24 hours a day.
During his briefing, Beedie shared new details about the size and location of the two spills that occurred on the rainy Saturday at a pump station on Robinwood Drive just south of Hollywood Boulevard. Original reports put the spill at a single discharge of 500,000 gallons of raw sewage, but the most recent numbers indicate the first spill released 30,000 gallons into a drain at Sound Park. The second spill, which occurred a few hours later, released about 1 million gallons of raw sewage into the drain and also onto a Fort Walton Beach Housing Authority complex on Robinwood.
“Of this million gallons, only about 10 percent made it into the waterway,” Beedie said.
He said sewage backed up into only two units at the housing complex and that city workers walked door-to-door to notify residents of the spill.
“With a quick response from our staff and a quick response from the Housing Authority staff … catastrophe was avoided,” he said. “We continued the cleanup effort on Saturday and Sunday with our vacuum trucks and lime to disinfect the area.”
Beedie said the city is continuing to test the water upstream and downstream of the sewage spill. Tests are being done at the Liza Jackson Park pier, Sound Park and the Fort Walton Landing dock.
In Valparaiso, about 58,000 gallons of sewage spilled into Tom's Bayou and Boggy Bayou on July 6.
Beedie and Valandingham were among numerous local officials, including Villani and Chapman, who met Friday to discuss how to improve the response to sewage spills.
Under the new procedure, city governments and local water utilities will take the extra step of notifying the county after a spill occurs.
“As a backup mechanism, we ask that they call the 911 communications center, which also happens to be the after-hours number for the Health Department,” Villani said.
He said it’s simply not good enough to rely only on the state notification system to alert the Health Department of spills.
“It’s really ridiculous to rely on someone 150 miles away to notify our county of something that is happening in our county,” Villani told commissioners.
Under the new procedure, after a municipality or water utility contacts the county, emergency management officials will request that the Health Department “initiate a public press release that details the information” about the spill and what safety precautions the public should take.
Valandingham said the new procedure is a good idea.
“I love the fact that we are going to have a redundant system because it’s nothing more than an extra phone call on our part and the ultimate goal is to make sure these people are notified,” he said.
Beedie said he and his staff are still reviewing the procedure but are committed to improving the process.
“The bottom line is we all know we have to work together and we will do that,” he said.
After the briefing, Boyles voiced concern that city officials had not recognized that a serious breakdown in communication had occurred.
“If that understanding has not permeated, then we continue to have an issue,” he said. “That’s what this whole thing has been about. There was a failure in the communication system.”
Boyles said he will continue to push for the county, municipalities and local water and sewer utilities to ensure that the public will be notified after spills occur.
“I’m not going to let this thing go until we find an adequate resolution to the issue,” he said.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Kari C. Barlow at 850-315-4438 or kbarlow@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KariBnwfdn.