UPDATE: The following press release was distributed by Holley-Navarre Water System
“On Wednesday October 12th at approximately 2:30 pm, local time, Holley Navarre Water System staff discovered a break in the wastewater main that crosses under the culvert at William’s Creek and US Highway 98 in Navarre. The leaking pipe was taken out of service immediately following the discovery and repairs began soon after.
Holley Navarre Water System has notified the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Santa Rosa County Health Department of the spill and will be working with Santa Rosa County Health Department. Holley Navarre Water System will comply with all notification and cleanup requirements in order to minimize the impact to the environment and to public health.
We regret this happened and will continue to work tirelessly to maintain and repair existing infrastructure and to prevent future spills that pose a risk to the environment and to our members.
Thank you Paul Gardner, General Manager”
ORIGINAL POST (with correction of time to 2:30 p.m.):
Holley-Navarre Water System crews discovered hole in a pipeline around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. HNWS General Manager Paul Gardner said the leak was repaired shortly thereafter but some raw sewage did spill into Williams Creek.
“It’s a very small leak. We caught it right away. We’re trying to figure out right now how much leaked,” Gardner said Thursday. “We took the the line out of service immediately. It has a temporary fix on it now.”
The state now requires the utility to notify the media when such leaks occur, and HNWS engineers are working to calculate how many gallons were leaked so that notification can be made.
“Over the years FDOT has been widening U.S. 98, and every time they build structures toward the right-of-way,” Gardner said.
According to Gardner, road infrastructure was built over a sewer line. “The concrete either rubbed a hole or corroded a hole in one of the iron fittings of a PVC pipe,” he said.
Gardner said the leak shouldn’t effect service and said the incident was report to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s state warning point.
“All indications look like it hadn’t been leaking very long,” Gardner said.
