Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (WSVN)-The City of Fort Lauderdale is finalizing their plan to solve the city’s sewer problems.

On Thursday, city officials held a valve turning ceremony in Fort Lauderdale.

The project is worth 65 million U.S. dollars and is currently underway as the city hopes to repair a 7-mile sewer transmission line.

"This is a historic day for the city of Fort Lauderdale. This is an amazing achievement," Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Steven Glassman said.

The project took 18 months to complete. Workers use trenchless technology to avoid digging roads in the city.

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis (Dean Trantalis) said that the new material high-density polyethylene will prevent future disconnection.

"The HDPE plastic pipe that replaces the old iron pipe provides a long-life solution that is corrosion-resistant," he said. "The new pipeline has fewer joints and can be bent as the groundwater level changes to prevent rupture."

The new sewer pipe was officially opened in July. However, officials wanted to make sure it was up and running before the completion ceremony.

Fort Lauderdale’s water supply and sewer infrastructure required some major repairs and updates after the city had to deal with a series of major disruptions in the sewers that flooded communities.

"Fort Lauderdale has taken a bold approach, using the most advanced elastic materials to build a redundant line, which will allow us to provide reliable sewage treatment services to our neighbors and surrounding cities, and prevent the occurrence of a A series of interruptions and other unfortunate events. It happened in December 2019," said Trantalis.

The mayor said the days of broken water pipes and sewers in the front yard are now a thing of the past.

"I want to thank all the residents of Fort Lauderdale, especially the residents of Rio Vista, Victoria Park, and Coral Ridge, who have been affected by infrastructure failures and construction work related to this project.

According to city officials, the new sewer will not replace the old line, but will be completely independent of the old line.

“We will repair [the old production line] and continue to maintain it, so we have two production lines,” Trantalis said.

Officials said that having two lines will help prevent further outages and problems in the future.

Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Ben Sorensen said that several projects are currently underway to strengthen the infrastructure.

"The city of Fort Lauderdale has invested in infrastructure like never before," he said. "We will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure construction to make this city a city you never want to leave when you visit."

Officials said they have pledged to carry out nearly $200 million in infrastructure repairs in the next few years.

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