Making the case to pause the Village’s massive and expensive drainage project

During 2014-18, when I served as a member of the Village Council, my main focus was trying to figure out why our storm drainage system did not work. The story is long, but to make it short, the head of Public Works at that time, Sergio Ascunce, helped me figure it out by auditing all 700+ catch basins in the Village system. His report showed that more than 75% of all catch basins in the Village were – full of sand and silt, some more than 50 inches from the bottom of the structure. A catch basin ceases to operate as a drainage asset when the debris inside it is above the pipe connected to the bottom of the catch basin, which connects the catch basin to the rest of the drainage system.

At the time, stormwater caught in the catch basins was not draining anywhere and would pond, sometimes for days. The village administration decided to start budgeting funds for servicing the catch basins and lines. That was a start, but certainly not nearly enough. Eventually, all lines, outfalls and wells would have to be cleaned.

Fast-forward to the present.

Let's start with the premise that the Village of Key Biscayne's stormwater drainage system still has not been properly maintained. Out of the 39 gravity wells in our drainage system, only 12 have been serviced within the last four years. None have been serviced in 2024 as of this writing. Servicing or "rehabilitating" gravity wells makes all the difference in their performance. The well at the end of my street – Allendale and West Enid – was rehabilitated in 2022-23. It was like night and day. Any stormwater during a storm is gone within a few hours of the rain subsiding.

Instead of servicing or maintaining the existing system and evaluating it to determine if it provides an acceptable level of service, the Village has decided to replace it with a substantially over-designed and expensive behemoth project.

I submit that the logical, reasonable, and fiscally responsible thing to do before we tear out what I and many others think is a perfectly adequate drainage system is to have all wells, outfalls, weirs, pump stations, video-inspected and properly serviced/rehabilitated into optimum condition and observed over 2-3 years to see if our present system provides an acceptable level of service.

The installation of shallow injection wells, as is being planned for the Garden District, may benefit some areas by the K-8 and elsewhere.

If the level of service of the properly maintained system is acceptable to residents, we keep it for the rest of its useful life. If we find that the level of service is not adequate after doing what is prudent, we can then decide to replace it.

The engineers we hired should have proposed and implemented this before proceeding with a massive project that doesn't address our very real problem—sea level rise.

It is great to see that four of the six candidates for council are willing to audit/inspect our present stormwater system, perform needed maintenance and observe its performance over an adequate period before deciding to tear it out and replace it.

This election should be a referendum on how to deal with this critical issue.

What's the hurry?

de la Cruz is a longtime resident and former Village of Key Biscayne Council member and mayoral candidate.