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The Little River winds its way through 12 miles of densely populated communities and receives stormwater flows containing pollution that ends up in the bay. The more groundwater rises, the more septic systems tend to fail, leaching waste into the river and the bay. And then there’s sea level rise, making the groundwater creep up around the Little River. Stormwater drainage systems haven’t kept up with growth in the area, so flooding is a constant issue. They are so problematic that Mayor Daniella Levine Cava made it a priority to connect them to the sewer system, before any other place in the county.
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Nearly 2,000 septic tanks surround the canal and 80,000 more are in the wider basin. So even today, we’re trying to figure it out.” Flooding and septic leaks ”Scientifically speaking, we’re still trying to understand if the river is what caused the fish kill last year, or if large discharges were the last straw. But there seems to be a disagreement on how much water comes out of the river, and how much pollution, and where all that is coming from,” he said. “The Little River has a long history of pollution.
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There are also other unanswered questions about how much surface and ground water flow into the Little River, which runs through the lowest elevations in the county, said Piero Gardinali, associate director at Florida International University’s Institute of Environment, leading the Freshwater Resources Division. While these industrial facilities are permitted to operate in the area, compliance with the rules is not well monitored and oversight of waste disposal is insufficient, according to the county’s Chief Bay Officer Irela Bagué. Industrial facilities like truck parking lots, ship container servicing companies, a cement distribution center and even a paper mill are also in close proximity to its murky waters, as they make their way to Biscayne Bay. Shopping malls, Miami Dade College’s north campus and six golf courses surround the waterway’s wider drainage basin. Hundreds of homes on septic tanks that are increasingly failing are just a few feet away from its banks. Those answers will help assess how big a contribution water from the Little River has on the health of the northern part of the bay. The county and academic researchers are looking at septic, sewage and stormwater systems and other infrastructure along with water flow and circulation to identify the sources of pollution. Chlorophyll levels, which indicate the presence of algae growth as a result of pollution, are higher, according to DERM.īut it’s unclear what exactly causes all that pollution. Dissolved oxygen levels, a measure of how much oxygen is available for fish and other marine life, are consistently lower than in other canals. The main suspect for that are low-lying septic tanks that regularly fail. Still, there are more pollution hot spots in the Little River than in any other major canal in Miami-Dade.įecal bacteria levels - indicators of human waste - are typically higher than those in the Miami River. Emily MIchot of the Little River are still beautiful, teeming with birds and manatees as it runs through residential areas like El Portal. An orange boom used to collect garbage and debris stretches across the Little River just north of the South Florida Water Management District’s flood control structure near Northeast 82nd Street and Northeast Fourth Place.