FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – They call her the “Water Guru:” a Fort Lauderdale resident who watches over the canals and Intracoastal and makes a lot of noise when conditions aren’t safe.
Suzee Bailey has amassed quite the following of concerned residents, demanding the city of Fort Lauderdale do more to address the water quality issues plaguing their community.
For Bailey, a Normandy Isles waterfront homeowner, addressing the constant pollution sources impacting Fort Lauderdale waterways has become a second career for this now-retired former TV Sportscaster.
“If it’s a health and safety issue, it affects everyone,” Bailey explained.
Bailey expressed her frustration with this latest episode. On Sept. 30, a Fort Lauderdale subcontractor relocating a fiber optic line unintentionally drilled through an existing 54-inch wastewater pipe near Port Everglades, spewing millions of gallons of treated effluent before it was finally contained a week later.
Though, this time, the city was not at fault, for Bailey, these assaults on her precious waterways happen all too frequently.
Bailey’s been sounding the alarm for years, alerting neighbors and visitors to the often dangerous state of Fort Lauderdale’s waterways through her community organization, “Residents for Resilience,” which now boasts more than six hundred members.
“You’re talking about our waterways, and you’re talking about an area that people come down and visit,” she said. “People could be getting sick, and they don’t know why.”
Bailey should know. Back in January 2020, she got very sick after recreating in the canal behind her home.
“Well, I actually found out what I didn’t know when I got MRSA paddle boarding on these waterways after 200 million gallons of sewage was flowing into our canals and rivers,” she recalled.
Her experience happened right after the worst sewage spill in Florida history. Antiquated pipes began to burst in December of 2019 with six breaks happening through January of 2020.
In total, more than 211 million gallons of raw sewage spewed into the Tarpon River and Himmarshee Canal, impacting waterways and streets from Rio Vista to Victoria Park and Coral Ridge. But after the breaks were contained, Bailey says that the city did not do enough to warn residents to stay out of the water.
“I got mad because I was like, where’s the information?” she said.
That’s when Bailey launched her crusade. She began showing up at commission meetings, organizing town halls, and pressuring city leaders to not just clean up the water, but to be more vocal with residents when conditions aren’t safe.
“That bothers a lot of us. We spend a lot of money to live on the waterways, lots of tax dollars come from those people that live on the waterways,” she underscored. “And yet, what’s being done for those waterways?”
Fort Lauderdale has more than 300 miles of canals weaving through the greater metropolitan area, with 165 miles of those running through the city itself. It’s the reason why it’s often referred to as the “Venice of America” and why many decide to visit and move to the area.
Exasperated for support, Bailey lobbied the city to contract Miami Waterkeeper to test the waterways. Since January 2021, a science team now conducts a weekly sampling of 10 popular recreation sites, testing for the presence of enterococci, a fecal indicator bacteria, in the water.
Local 10 Environmental Advocate and Anchor Louis Aguirre joined the group’s Science Research Manager Aliza Karim as she tested the water at Annie Beck Park.
“This area fails about 55% of the time, at least over the last three years,” Karim said.
The park is surrounded by stately homes and is very close to highly-dense urban Fort Lauderdale. When the storms come and flooding inevitably follows and the water gets nasty.
“All of the runoff from the streets, from backyards, those are going to be what’s ending up in the water, and that can contribute to our issues with bacteria,” Karim explained.
Weekly results appear on Miami Waterkeeper’s website, social media pages and on the Swim Guide app that warns visitors to stay out of the water when bacteria levels are too high.
Six of the 10 tested sites habitually fail. While there are signs near the waterways with QR codes prompting visitors to check the water quality, Bailey says they’re not enough.
“We’re asking for actual signage that tells people don’t go in the water because there’s certain areas you don’t want to go in, or you don’t want to fish in,” Bailey explained.
Last Thanksgiving, 12-year-old Cruz Yturralde spent three days in the hospital after he got sick from fishing in one of the canals.
“I was eating, like, some of the fish out of here, and it was like really dirty water,” the young resident explained. “It was pretty crazy. I didn’t know that that would happen. I thought the water was clean, but it wasn’t.”
It’s these sorts of stories that are the driving force behind Bailey’s Residence for Resilience. The group’s website is full of information and is constantly updated to educate neighbors and visitors about the state of these waters.
The City of Fort Lauderdale’s newly appointed Chief Resiliency Officer said millions of dollars are now being spent on capital improvements and stormwater upgrades.
“Over the course of the last five years, and moving forward, we’re easily going to be investing about a billion and a half in new infrastructure, and upgrading our wastewater treatment plant,” explained Deputy of Public Works Chief Resiliency Officer Dr. Nancy Gassman.
Still, spills happen, like the one near Port Everglades. Though the wastewater that flowed into the Intracoastal was treated, it doesn’t mean it was completely devoid of bacteria or chemicals. There is no data yet on the environmental impact this latest breach may have had.
For Bailey, this only underscores her mission. “So, if we don’t all stand together and start advocating for the health of these waterways, we’ve got some big problems,” she said.
In addition to urgently scaling infrastructure improvements, Bailey is urging the city to look into long-term, nature-based solutions like oyster colonies and biochar sleeves to help filter out some of the bad nutrients and bacteria present in the water. Bailey is optimistic pilot programs will soon be launched.
Residents for Resilience is hosting an event on Oct. 24 so that more community members can learn about those remediation effects and nature-based solutions.
Those interested can RSVP on its website, where they can also sign up for email updates from the organization.