A broken wastewater pipe next to Aquatica's parking lot spilled 342,000 gallons of sewage in two separate incidents on Sept. 6 and Sept. 10, just steps from the proposed site of a Major League Baseball stadium tied to the Orlando Dreamers project. Orange County did not tell the public until Thursday morning, more than a week after the first break, and only after reporters started asking questions.
A Week-Late Disclosure Draws Fire
According to the Orlando Sentinel, county officials say the wastewater pipe was repaired and returned to service on Wednesday, and that the response drew more than 100 trucks from around the state. Orange County mayoral candidate Chris Messina held a news conference at the spill site on Thursday and sharply criticized the county for staying quiet, arguing officials should have alerted the press, the public and nearby businesses as soon as the pipe broke.
Messina, a Republican entrepreneur, told reporters that government has an obligation to be transparent about anything affecting public safety, health, well-being and the environment, and said he would make transparency a priority if elected. He is set to face Democratic Orange County Clerk of Court Tiffany Moore Russell in an officially nonpartisan runoff that will decide who succeeds Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, according to the same Sentinel report.
Candidate Says Water Rose Over His Boots
Messina says he responded to the spill site on Sept. 16 while cleanup was underway, and that spill water rose two to three inches over his boots. He also said work trucks arrived from as far away as Lake County. The Sentinel reports the site still smelled of sewage during his news conference, and that a work crew was seen pumping apparent wastewater from a large hole across the grass.
Messina told reporters an anonymous contractor at the scene estimated the spill was actually larger than the county's official figure of more than 342,000 gallons, and he also cast doubt on the county's claim that no surface water was contaminated. The county disputes that characterization; per the Sentinel's reporting, county spokespersons say the spill was contained and redirected back into the sewage system and that no surface water was affected. The dossier does not resolve which account is accurate, and this article does not attempt to settle it either.
What Orange County Says Happened
County spokespersons told the Sentinel the spill was reported to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and that appropriate state agencies were notified, adding that the county follows all regulations and issues required notifications. Orange County did not say what caused the two pipe breakages. The county is also working with SeaWorld Orlando, which owns Aquatica, and a SeaWorld spokesperson said the water park was not impacted by the spill.
The wastewater facility sits next to Aquatica's parking lot in Orange County, in the vicinity of Shingle Creek, which serves as the headwaters of the Florida Everglades, per the Sentinel's report. The same stretch of land has been eyed as the proposed home for a Major League Baseball stadium under the Orlando Dreamers project, a stadium that remains unfulfilled.
How It Compares to Other Florida Spills
Sewage spills of this kind are not unique to Central Florida. Earlier this year, a broken valve dumped 14,000 gallons of raw wastewater directly into Sarasota Bay, part of the Intracoastal Waterway bordering Manatee and Sarasota counties, according to mysuncoast.com. That spill was traced to soil erosion that shifted a concrete vault over an air-release valve and broke a connector attached to the sewage line, and crews stopped it by installing a repair clamp over a two-inch hole. Suncoast Waterkeeper later reported its own water sample from that site came back showing good quality, the outlet noted.
A separate account of the same Sarasota-area incident, reported by bradenton.com, described city staff applying lime, washing down the area and vacuuming up spill remnants for disposal at a wastewater treatment facility after the leak was clamped. Those cleanup steps are not confirmed for the Orange County spill; the dossier does not describe the specific remediation methods used near Aquatica beyond the pumping crews Messina observed.
Florida's environmental rules generally direct wastewater operators to report smaller spills — those of 1,000 gallons or less — to the appropriate Department of Environmental Protection district office or a delegated local program, according to a notice on the Florida Department of Environmental Protection website. The Orange County spill, at hundreds of thousands of gallons, was reported to the same state agency, though the county has not detailed the exact timeline of that notification relative to the public disclosure.
For now, the exact cause of the two pipe breaks near Aquatica remains unstated by the county, and the dispute over the spill's true size and environmental impact is unresolved between Messina and county officials. The runoff between Messina and Moore Russell will decide who leads Orange County next and how the county handles moments like this one going forward.
