Crews trying to fix 'sand volcano' impacting Central Florida reservoir

Marie Edinger
·2 min read
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APOPKA, Fla. - A volcano has emerged in Central Florida! But you don’t have to worry about it spewing lava all over the city.

This is an unusual feature that Devo Seereeram, a Consulting Geotechnical Engineer and the owner of Devo Engineering, calls a "sand volcano." He is working for the City of Apopka and trying to fix it.

"This is ‘Mother Nature’ telling us we can't do certain things, and we are going to respect that and respond and modify," said Seereeram.

The issue emerged within a 300-million-gallon wastewater storage area just west of State Road 429 in Apopka, off of Golden Gem Road. The reservoir stores water that will be used to irrigate not only Apopka but also Altamonte Springs and other surrounding areas.

<div>An unusual feature has formed in Apopka, Florida, that Devo Seereeram, a Consulting Geotechnical Engineer and the owner of Devo Engineering, calls a "sand volcano."</div>
An unusual feature has formed in Apopka, Florida, that Devo Seereeram, a Consulting Geotechnical Engineer and the owner of Devo Engineering, calls a "sand volcano."

When it’s rainy, people don’t really need to water their lawns, and we have to put the extra water somewhere. Plus, we need access to it during the drier seasons. That’s where the Golden Gem Road facility will come in.

"It’s one of the most important facilities we can be built in Central Florida," Seereeram said. "From an environmental standpoint, there's absolutely no way we can keep putting treated wastewater into our streams, directly into the streams anymore."

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However, Seereeram says the people building the storage area dug too deep and thinned out the land too much. As the water piled on, it eventually collapsed, like snow caving in a roof. That created a sinkhole. Beneath it, the pressure from the air and water tore through a protective tarp layer, eventually sending 130 million gallons of water spewing back to the upper Floridan aquifer and creating the sand volcano.

<div>An unusual feature has formed in Apopka, Florida, that Devo Seereeram, a Consulting Geotechnical Engineer and the owner of Devo Engineering, calls a "sand volcano."</div>
An unusual feature has formed in Apopka, Florida, that Devo Seereeram, a Consulting Geotechnical Engineer and the owner of Devo Engineering, calls a "sand volcano."

"Here we have a situation where we have, fortunately, discovered it early," said Seereeram. "But it gave us enough time. So it was not a catastrophic release of water like a dam failure."

Devo Engineering had seen something like this before and worked to fix it. They’re doing the same here. They will have to fill in and bolster some of the land, which will mean less storage space and no more volcanoes.

Now, it’s just a race against time. The engineers hope to have this fixed before Central Florida’s rainy season starts.