Miami

FDOT Issued Citations for Pollution Caused at Construction Sites

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Recent drone footage shows murky, greyish water coating a portion of Biscayne Bay.

This comes after sediment was thrust into the water during a recent storm — that sediment coming from the Florida Department of Transportation's new signature bridge project.

City officials got a glimpse of the damage and say it's unacceptable.

"It’s so frustrating because we fight so hard to keep nutrients and pollutants out of the water … and to see our own government being the polluter … we have to hold them accountable," said Miami Commissioner Ken Russell.

Aaron DeMayo shot the drone video. An architect and an advocate for clean water, he says this video is proof that we are not taking the necessary steps to protect our waterways.

"We need to be able to build constructively because the city is expanding," he said. "We have more residents coming here … but when we build, we need to take sustainability efforts into account. For sun exposure for hurricanes, and for stormwater retention. We were seeing a lot more extreme rain events across the city more frequently."

Local organization Miami Waterkeeper is also sounding the alarm, saying while we can take corrective actions to prevent this, the damage is already done.

"Can actually bury seagrass and corals and other forms of life living on the bottom. So, this may seem just like a small temporary impact, but when this is happening again and again and again, all of those impacts accumulate and make it really hard for the bay to sustain life," said executive director Rachel Silverstein.

Russell says the next steps are to survey that damage.

"The Florida Department of Transportation has responded with a corrective action plan that they are already implementing to secure all of those sites," Russell said.

Three notices of violations have already been issued to FDOT for the pollution caused at some of their construction sites: I-395 construction (the old Miami Herald site), 1st Street Bridge on the Miami River, and Seybold Canal.

NBC 6 reached out to FDOT and did not hear back.

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