1.6 Million gallons of raw sewage released in Charlotte County
The Department of Environmental Protection is investigating how southwest Florida will be impacted after 1.6 million gallons of raw sewage seeped into the Charlotte Harbor over the weekend.
Punta Gorda’s wastewater treatment plant reported the release was due to an influx of storm surge from Helene.
“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,” said Don Duke, chair of the Department of Ecology in Environmental Studies at Florida Gulf Coast Univeristy’s Water School. “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.”
In the DEP’s latest update, It said no clean-up actions are in the works for the sewage spill.
WINK News has reached out to the city to see if that could change.