ST. PETERSBURG, Fla, (WFLA) — St. Petersburg neighbors are stunned after witnessing a utility truck dumping some type of liquid at a city-owned boat ramp.
It happened at the Sunlit Cover Boat Ramp, just south of Gandy Boulevard. Chris Powers is concerned about the water quality after witnessing it, so he turned to 8 On Your Side.
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The city said it is simply stormwater, but Powers and his neighbors aren’t so sure.
Powers raised his family in the Riviera Bay neighborhood.
“I raised my young-ins here, so I still look after it I still feel like it’s a part of me, so we’ll speak our mind,” he said.
Powers was about to go fishing on Friday but was appalled when he saw a Stormwater, Pavement and Traffic Operations city truck back into the Sunlit Cove Boat Ramp and dump hundreds of gallons of the murky liquid, which ran right into the bay. He wondered if it was harmful and said it happened multiple times.
“They proceeded to dump an amazing amount of I don’t know what it was,” Powers said. “The longer that you watched, the darker and nasty it got. That’s when it started stinking, and it’s really oily. You could see the machine in the water. It’s the road cars drip oil.”
SPTO Director, Marshall Hampton, said city crews vacuumed out the stormwater from a vault in the neighborhood — which consisted of tidal water, groundwater, and stormwater runoff — then discharged it at the boat ramp.