Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Copyright 2002 by the Sun-Sentinel
Friday, August 16, 2002
EDITORIAL
MIAMI-DADE IN COMPLIANCE
Regarding your Aug. 7 article, "Report says 50 Florida
governments, businesses violate Clean Water Act," by reporter Neil
Santaniello:
According to the article, the report published by the U.S. Public
Interest Research Group -- which was based on data from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency -- included sewage treatment
systems in Miami-Dade County as violators of the federal Clean Water
Act.
Quite the contrary, the PIRG report simply stated that the EPA
was not in receipt of the required discharge monitoring reports
from the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department's Central District
Wastewater Treatment Plant at Virginia Key, from January 2000
through March 2001.
In response to Mr. Santaniello's call, Frank Calderon, an
information officer for MDWASD, discovered that the department has
indeed submitted all required discharge monitoring reports to the
EPA during the time period in question. Mr. Calderon not only told
Mr. Santaniello, but also pointed out that our Central District
Wastewater Treatment Plant won Gold Peak Performance Awards from the
Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies for 100 percent
compliance with EPA regulations. Ironically, the awards were won
during 2000 and 2001, the time period reviewed in the PIRG report.
The omission of this critical information from Mr. Santaniello's
article is misleading to your readers. MDWASD and its employees take
great pride in making sure that Miami-Dade County residents have
clean, safe drinking water, and to protect our environment from
contamination. While Mr. Santaniello's article indicated otherwise,
at the time of its publication, MDWASD was in full compliance with
EPA regulations.
William M. Brant
Director Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Dept. Miami