Cracked pipe causes 4M gallons of raw sewage to flow into Pinellas neighborhood

Outside Barry Medlock’s home on 53rd Avenue North in unincorporated Pinellas County, a faint odor of sewage lingered.

His property was “ground zero” for a 4½ million gallon spill of raw wastewater that flooded the street and gushed into his garage two weeks ago.

But it didn’t surprise him.

It’s the third time the pipe running through Medlock’s neighborhood to a nearby treatment facility has burst in recent years. The first spill happened in 2021. One year later, another failure unleashed about 300,000 gallons of untreated wastewater.

Medlock was getting the Sunday newspaper during that spill when he came home to see sewage bubbling up. This time, he was at work when his next-door neighbor called.

”It’s back,” they told him.

Medlock arrived home and found sewage flooding his backyard. It crept downhill onto the properties of at least two of his neighbors, he said. County crews didn’t stop the flow for another five hours, Medlock recalled.

According to Pinellas County, crews responded to the 53rd Avenue North neighborhood, near 110th Street North, around 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 28. The spill was caused by a crack in an aging 24-inch sewer line. Over the next few days, more than 4,400,000 gallons of sewage spilled, enough to fill roughly six Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Nory Hancock, the county’s deputy director of utilities, said the spill was under control by about 1 p.m. on Aug. 28. The county used vacuum trucks to collect about 874,000 gallons of wastewater, and overflows over the next few days were directed to a stormwater ditch using sandbags, Hancock said.

About five or six homes were affected by the spill, Hancock said. Medlock’s home was the only one to have sewage reach the garage. The other homes had sewage that crept up as far as their lawns, Hancock said.

Wastewater did reach surrounding coastal waterways, the county said.

“Unfortunately there is no way to determine the total amount that went into the waterway versus the surrounding area around the pipe,” the county said in an email Friday.

Testing in affected coastal areas after the spill showed surface water met water quality standards, the county said.

“We understand the frustration — it hasn’t happened once, it hasn’t happened twice, but three times,” Hancock said. “I can assure you that we are as concerned as the citizens, and we are acting on it.”

After the second pipe burst in 2022, the county began plans to replace the 50-year-old pipe. About 2,900 feet of the current 24-inch-diameter pipe will be replaced with a 20-inch PVC pipe, according to the county. A county website explaining the project states that the new pipe will “increase durability and meet industry standards.”

Hancock said the county has selected a contractor and could begin working in the next month or so. Construction is expected to last seven months, according to the project website.

Pinellas County will hold a public meeting to discuss the project at 6 p.m. Sept. 24 at Madeira Beach Fundamental K-8 School.

Medlock, 65, was happy to see work on the pipe completed Friday afternoon, but he wasn’t convinced it would be the last spill on his street. Nothing was damaged in his garage this time, but he’s making preparations with neighbors ahead of the next rupture.

”I think we’re probably all going to be planning on having sandbags,” he said.

About five houses up the street, Vicky and Mark Jones were unaffected by the spill. Their home is 28 feet above sea level and sits near the top of 53rd Avenue and 110th Street North’s gentle slope.

“Happily,” Vicky said, “poop doesn’t go up the hill, it only goes downhill.”

Over the past two weeks, emergency repair work has disrupted what is normally a quiet neighborhood. The Jones’ three dogs bark at every passing construction vehicle.

Medlock has been parking his car at a neighbor’s home while crews rip up the road in front of his house. His dog, a hound mix named Gia, doesn’t want to go outside, and he’s worried she could get sick from exposure to the wastewater.

Still, Medlock smiled through it all.

”What else you gonna do?” he said with a shrug.