The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is investigating an incident involving a Winter Springs political candidate after a social media post had residents fearing unnecessarily for the safety of their drinking water.
A post on Facebook featuring Winter Springs City Commission candidate Brandon Morrisey on Aug. 21 had residents calling and messaging Winter Springs officials trying to find out how far an alleged boil water notice extended from the city’s Oak Forest neighborhood. But when city officials looked into it they didn’t have anything to report, because the boil water notice wasn’t real.
The notice had originated from Brandon Morrisey’s father William Morrisey’s Facebook account, featuring a picture of Brandon Morrisey, with logos from the Winter Springs Community Association and referring to a group identifying itself as “Community Water Advisors.”
The fake boil water notice was then shared by numerous Facebook users, including Live Now 32708, and the incident was posted by clickorlando.com.
That caused a panic, Winter Springs Deputy Mayor Rob Elliott said.
“To me it’s tantamount to someone standing up in a crowded movie theater and yelling ‘Fire!’ to say that the water is contaminated in the neighborhood where I live and saying that the water needed to be boiled,” Elliott said.
The Facebook post came four hours after a call for service prompted the city to begin testing water in the area. Within a two-day span three complaints referring to discolored water came from houses next to and across the street from the Morrisey family home in the Oak Forest neighborhood, which both the candidate and his father list as a residence. Brandon Morrisey did not return a request for comment.
Now the FDEP is investigating the incident.
“The DEP did make the comment that this is very atypical for them to experience where water becomes political,” said engineer Meera Joshi who, with water system contractor Carollo Engineers, investigated the city’s water systems after the social media post frightened residents. They found no issues with the water. It’s part of a targeted political campaign on social media, Winter Springs Mayor Kevin McCann said, to paint the city in a bad light.
“There are people with ulterior motives spreading what appears to be disinformation,” McCann said.
Commissioner Cade Resnick Wednesday said that the city and commissioners had received many calls and messages wanting to know about the fake boil water notice, believing it was real. The city has posted a guide to their boil-water-notice process to help residents determine if what they’re seeing on social media isn’t genuine.
Resnick said that some water issues can be intermittent and that he’s requesting additional regular testing be done to make sure the systems are safe.
William Morrisey said that the city knows it has water problems and that it’s covering them up. He said that his neighbors have had discolored water from their faucets and toilets.
The city has issued precautionary boil water notices in recent months, (UPDATE: including on Aug. 30), in other areas of the city, but not in the area implicated in the fake boil water notice. When Carollo Engineers infrastructure design manager Scott Richards went looking for evidence of a blown pipe or other problem that would have led to a resident posting a photo of dirty water and posting a fake boil water notice, he said he found nothing.
“We were unable to duplicate the issue, and no one kept a sample to provide,” Richards said. “So we were very limited on information from there. The only data we got were some pictures that were posted on Facebook….We have talked to DEP. There was no known loss of pressure. There were no breaks. Anything that would trigger a boil water notice, nothing occurred.”
The lack of evidence of a leak to accompany the complaints left one Commissioner scratching his head.
“If I had brown water coming out of my tap I would absolutely save a sample because I would want that analyzed,” Commissioner Ted Johnson said.
As of Aug. 30 William Morrisey said that he now has water samples that he wants to provide to Carollo for testing.
Asked what the next step could be, Joshi said that’s in FDEP’s court now.
“They are looking into the legality of the matter and they’re going to follow up on that,” she said. “They’re going to look into what action they can take and they’re going to be following up.”
The incident is not the first time this month that the city’s water systems entered politics on social media.
On Aug. 14 Winter Springs resident Andrew Hood approached the City Commission during a regular meeting to discuss a 2022 Youtube video featuring then Commission candidates Victoria Colangelo and Resnick in which Hood, a PhD water systems engineer, said Resnick “lied” about water pipe problems in the city that weren’t real. Utilities Director Bilal Ifthikar said that the city’s utility department master plan includes budgeting for pipeline improvements and replacement, but in written communications between city staff, Carollo Engineers and Hood, Hood was told that they had not seen “any data which suggests that there are major system pipeline replacements needed at this time.”
“I am very disappointed that a Commission member has lied about the condition about the drinking water distribution system piping,” Hood said.
Colangelo and Resnick were both elected to office that November, after the video posted. Hood said that this July he requested data from Resnick, Colangelo and the city that showed whether the city’s drinking water pipes needed replacing, which would cost an estimated $339 million if true. So far he said he’s received nothing.
But Resnick said that a presentation on Aug. 28 related to the city’s water systems showed the city has already documented systems in need of repair and is working to update and fix potable water systems, including piping, alongside its sewer and reclaimed water systems, part of a proposed $166 million in repairs and updates that the city is expected to vote on at a future meeting. That includes $66 million in added funding to fix more of the city’s systems.
“If everything was fine, staff wouldn’t be asking for additional money to fix the lines,” Resnick said.
UPDATE: This article has been updated with additional information from Hood, William Morrisey and the City of Winter Springs.
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