MIAMI – Pollution concerns prompted Miami-Dade police to raid a Redland property in Southwest Miami-Dade packed with illegal recreational vehicles. Residents, like a mother whose child got sick from contaminated water, are worried.
The vehicles, leaking septic waste, led to the raid and now, those responsible could face felony charges for pollution.
The raid involved more than 20 camped-out recreational vehicles.
Detectives said the setup is illegal and is an ongoing problem that affects other properties and the people who live there.
On Thursday, CBS News Miami spoke to residents in the area who say they have experienced firsthand the potential dangers in the soil.
“It was 10 days at a time in the hospital,” said a mother who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from her neighbors.
For years, this mother says she struggled watching her 3-year-old daughter go in and out of hospitals.
“After testing cultures, it’s E. coli, but it kept coming back to E. coli, and we weren’t sure why,” the mother said.
Until last month, she was unaware that the well water at her home she used for bathing her child and brushing her teeth was contaminated.
“Got a call from the Miami-Dade Police Department that my area might be polluted with E. coli,” the mom recalls.
Sure enough, she said her well that pumped water into the home tested positive for E. coli.
“I’m super angry that this happened,” the mom said.
CBS News Miami asked her, “Are you worried about your daughter’s future quality of life after what she’s going through?”
“Yes,” exclaimed the mom. “She had two surgeries to fix her kidneys because the bacteria was just, yeah, it’s, it’s been extremely hard.”
About a mile away from this mother’s Redland home, police raided a property filled with people living in RVs on Thursday morning.
“The best way I can describe it is a full-blown trailer park,” said Detective Ryan Cowart with the Miami-Dade Police Illegal Dumping Unit, who helped search a Redland property on SW 190th Street.
Photos show what looks like human waste coming out of pipes from the RVs onto the ground.
“Here’s visible signs like trailers leaking septic on the ground, stuff like that,” Cowart said. “Those are just obviously signs of pollution.”
The owner of the property refused to talk to CBS News Miami about the situation.
A CBS News Miami report could smell the foul odor from the street as the Department of Environmental and Resources management team carried soil and water samples back to their cars to test.
“We’re here because people are ultimately getting sick and injured because of these types of operations,” Cowart said. “Our ultimate goal with these RVs is to get them out of here because that’s the source of pollution in the area.”
It’s pollution that the mother says made her little girl sick. She told us that her family had installed a new filtration system, and the county had collected water samples Thursday to ensure they were safe to use.
“I hope No. 1 that she’s healthy and that this hasn’t, won’t cause any problems in the future with her, especially with her kidneys,” the mother said.
This mother’s strength was inspiring after hearing how much her daughter has gone through since she was 8 months old.
Her home well contamination has no known direction connection with the raid and alleged illegal RV setup at the property on SW 190th Street.
Miami-Dade police say property owners with illegal RV setups polluting groundwater wells and soil could face felony charges and thousands of dollars in fines and cleanup costs.
