Page 36 - CRCCE0722

Commissioner’s Message

he City Commission is committed to continually improving waterway quality.
We have initiated programs to reduce pollutants and remove trash from our
T165 miles of waterways. The City has conducted educational campaigns on
preventing discharges, infrastructure improvements such as swale rehabilitation to
improve the quality of stormwater reaching the waterways, and the implementation
of pilot and restoration projects directly to address water quality in our waterways.
In addition to these restoration projects, we’ve adopted a fertilizer ordinance that
bans applications during the rainy season.
Stormwater Operations has installed 57 pollution control devices in catch basins
to capture sediments and trash. The City has increased its effort to remove floating
debris from our canals, collecting over 115 tons of debris in one year. Street
sweeping, and proactive stormwater catch basin cleaning prevented nearly 1,500
Heather Moraitis tons of debris from entering the waterways. The City has piloted protein skimmer
District 1 Commissioner technology and embarked on an algae bloom mitigation pilot study. Our City
City of Fort Lauderdale
hmoraitis@fortlauderdale.gov Marinas are all designated Clean Marinas, and all offer free pump-out services for
sanitary discharge to boats.

We hired Miami Waterkeeper (MW), a South Florida-based non-profit
organization, to continuously monitor the quality of the City’s waterways and
provide status updates for neighbors and visitors (www.swimguide.org). Each
Tuesday, MW technicians perform water quality testing of fecal indicator bacteria
(FIB – Enterococci) within the City of Fort Lauderdale’s key recreational areas 10
recreational areas. MW reports whether samples meet waterway quality thresholds
based on the Florida Department of Health’s (FDOH) Health beaches program
criteria. These health-based standards are stricter than the environmental-based
City Hall, 8th Floor Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) Class III Enterococci water
100 N Andrews Ave standard designed to protect human health and aquatic life. For more information,
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311 visit www.miamiwaterkeeper.org.
The City continues to improve
the waterways impacted by the
2019 and 2020 wastewater
discharges at George English
Lake, the Tarpon River, and the
Himmarshee Canal. George
English has been successfully
dredged. The contract to
dredge the Tarpon River
Office Contact
Melissa Whiddon was awarded in December
District 1 Commission Assistant 2021. The City’s contractor,
mwhiddon@fortlauderdale.gov ATL Diversified, mobilized
954.828.5033 equipment to the Tarpon River
in April and has been actively
dredging in the permitted area.
The project is expected to
take three months. Permits for
dredging in the Himmarshee
Canal have been issued by the
regulatory agencies. The City is
currently preparing documents
to bid out the project.
photo courtesy Nancy Messing, Rio Vista.
cont. on pg 36

34 CORAL RIDGE COUNTRY CLUB ESTATES COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION

7/4/22 10:40 AM
CRCCE 0722.indd 34
CRCCE 0722.indd 34 7/4/22 10:40 AM