{"id":232396,"date":"2026-04-15T07:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T07:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/232396\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T07:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T07:42:08","slug":"vacuum-cleaners-may-suck-pollution-from-miami-river-tributary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/232396\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Vacuum cleaners\u2019 may suck pollution from Miami River tributary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\tWritten by Genevieve Bowen<\/a> on April 15, 2026<\/p>\n

\"www.miamitodaynews.com\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Advertisement\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\u2018Vacuum<\/p>\n

Wagner Creek, one of Florida\u2019s most polluted waterways, could soon see a fleet of vacuum-like cleaning devices deployed to pull contamination from the water and keep it from flowing into the Miami River.<\/p>\n

Miami commissioners on April 9 reviewed a proposal from Fast Cleaning Solutions to install additional water-cleaning and monitoring devices in Wagner Creek, building on a yearlong trial period that officials say reduced bacterial contamination by over 75%. The plan would add nine cleaning devices and three monitoring units for $360,000 over one year.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 15 years ago, Florida declared that one of the five tributaries of the Miami River, namely the Wagner Creek\/Seybold Canal \u2026 was the most contaminated body of water in the entire state,\u201d said Horacio Stuart Aguirre, chair of the Miami River Commission. He explained the that pollution does not originate within the river system itself but \u201csomewhere northwest of 20th Street\u201d and is primarily human fecal contamination. \u201cUnfortunately, because some of Wagner is very shallow, very narrow and quite crowded, the extraordinary cleanup vessel that we call the Scavenger, the red boat that\u2019s up and down the coast of Biscayne Bay and all the other waterways, can\u2019t navigate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The creek\u2019s physical constraints forced officials to rethink cleanup strategies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we could find remote operated vessels \u2026 then we could clean up some of the contamination, make it manageable and help the situation before it spreads into the Miami River. And that\u2019s what we\u2019re proposing today,\u201d Mr. Aguirre said, comparing the devices to \u201clittle vacuum cleaners, those round things that all of us have in our homes that go underneath chairs and tables and counters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brett Bibeau, managing director of the Miami River Commission, said Wagner Creek has repeatedly shown extreme bacteria levels through monthly testing by Miami-Dade County\u2019s Department of Environmental Resources Management. He said state standards set safe bacteria levels at 130 units, while readings in the creek have reached 24,196, the maximum level on the testing scale, in multiple months across 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bibeau said Fast Cleaning Solutions operated a bacterial water treatment device in Wagner Creek free of charge for one year, from April 2024 through March 2025. \u201cE. coli bacteria reduced by 82% while the enterococci bacteria reduced by 76%,\u201d he said, referencing comparisons between pre- and post-deployment data.<\/p>\n

The device, known as a bacterial managed water cleaning machine, oxygenates water using ionized air and filtration designed to reduce bacterial contamination while also providing real-time monitoring across multiple water quality indicators. Officials said the devices are intended for narrow waterways like Wagner Creek that cannot accommodate larger cleanup vessels already used on the Miami River and Biscayne Bay.<\/p>\n

Under the proposal, Fast Cleaning Solutions would expand deployment to 12 total units, including nine cleaning devices and three monitoring systems, for $360,000 over one year.<\/p>\n

City Manager James Reyes said the city is evaluating the proposal and will meet with the company to discuss the terms and potential procurement options before moving forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Written by Genevieve Bowen on April 15, 2026 Advertisement Wagner Creek, one of Florida\u2019s most polluted waterways, could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-232396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}