The city of Fort Lauderdale says the reason it never warned a local contractor about the location of the major water line it ended up breaking was that the contractor gave it the wrong address ahead of a drilling job.

The confusion and ultimate mishap is what led to the city losing its water supply temporarily and left its residents under multiple boil-water advisories.

According to the Sun Sentinel, the contractor used Sunshine 811 to locate underground utilities but provided an address that was 75 feet to the north of where it was actually drilling. The contractor then accidentally drilled into a 42-inch pipe that supplies raw water to the city’s main treatment plant.

Teen Invents Microplastic Removal Technique

An Irish teenager has come up with an idea to remove microplastic pollution from the world’s waterways as part of the Google Science Fair.

The 18-year-old Fionn Ferreira discovered a method using a combination of iron oxide and oil in the water, and then cleaning it up with strong magnets. He found that the magnets removed 85% to 92% of the microplastics in the water along with the iron oxide and oil solution.

Ferreira won the fair’s grand prize for his project, securing a $50,000 scholarship.

Residents in Saskatchewan Lose Basements to Sewer Backup

CBC News in Saskatchewan, Canada, is reporting that restoration companies are busy in Albert Park after a sewer backup flooded multiple homeowners’ basements.

One resident says her sump pump was going as hard as it could spraying sewage like a firehose into her backyard. When she checked the basement, it was flooded.

Another homeowner lost a brand new basement renovation to the backup.

The incident apparently had nothing to do with stormwater, and city officials had closed down a road to repair a sewer pipe.