Another useless state agency charged with environmental protection steps in it and makes a terrible decision and rewards corporate bad behavior.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) (an oxymoronic term) started out tough after an investigator witnessed illegal sewage dumping that led to two employees going to jail for the act.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) (an oxymoronic term) started out tough after an investigator witnessed illegal sewage dumping that led to two employees going to jail for the act.
Investigators from the DEP, with help from the Department of Transportation, followed a Shelley's truck Sept. 27 from the Daytona Water Treatment Facility on LPGA Boulevard to Cowart Ranch property off County Road 305 in Flagler County, according to DEP reports. They witnessed Douglas "Bear" Shelley and Scott Matthew Roberts "dumping raw residual waste on spread fields without the required treatment." That dump was approximately 25 yards (2,000 pounds), and 60 head of cattle were about 150 feet from where the human waste was dumped "leaving easy access for the cattle to come in direct contact with the waste," reports state.DEP rightfully followed that action with refusing to renew the permit of Shelley's Environmental Systems (SES), only to quickly reverse themselves after pressure from corporate legal eagles and the payment of a "settlement," that puts the company right back in toxic business.
This wasn't the first time SES got into trouble for its questionable way of doing business, but that didn't figure into the permit reinstatement, as usual.
Shelley's Environmental Systems in Zellwood must pay the DEP $74,500 in penalties as part of a settlement agreement submitted to a judge on Tuesday which gives the company a permit for another four years but also calls for Shelley's to sell 63 acres in Zellwood to VitAg Florida "for the purpose of construction of a biosolids treatment plant." This comes from the settlement agreement.Some property owners and others are skeptical."I was hoping something more would come of this," said Dale Clegg, who is in the area daily taking care of his parents' house. "It still smells the same out here. You're at the mercy of the state to take care of you, but they aren't keeping an eye on things like they should.""My whole problem is with the DEP," Taylor said. "You call them and tell them they aren't in compliance, and they call Shelley's and tell them they'll be out in 10 days. That gives them plenty of time to clean things up."
Same old stuff, insert any company in any community and this story is being written over and over again all across America. Our state "environmental protection" agencies continue to aide and abet this nasty business of sewer sludge (aka biosolids) and refuse to act in the public's best interests.
Florida is one of the most corrupt states in the Union and at the beck and call of big business. I will leave this state that has been my home for 30 plus years one day. Enough is enough. It will never be the same since the oil spill.
ReplyDeleteThere has to be an answer to this other than dumping it on fields and farms. It is a dangerous practice that should have never taken hold.
ReplyDeleteVitAg is a phosphate mining company.
ReplyDeleteThat kind of mining is wreaking havoc in Florida!
UPLANDER--
ReplyDeleteThey are a sewer sludge company, not mining.
WINGER
Far be it from me to comment on my webmaster's comment, but I think uplander may have been referring to Gary L. Dahms Manger of Engineering for ViatAg and his troublesome past with Mulberry Phosphates, Inc.
ReplyDeleteA weary bayfront community is still recovering from 2001, when Mulberry Phosphates filed bankruptcy and skipped town, leaving behind a fertilizer plant at Piney Point and a gypsum stack brewing with more than a billion gallons of wastewater.
He sounds like a fine upstanding individual like most of the sewer sludge monsters are.
MAX
Yes, I was referring to Mr. Dahms. Sorry I did not make that clear. Really glad you covered this story, my brother lives near the area and it has been a problem for a long time.
ReplyDeleteSewage sludge, treated or not, called "biosolids" or not, is always an unpredictable mix of chemicals that is harmful to human health and the environment.
ReplyDeleteThe tests on this crap is for "priority pollutants," a 1970s list of chemicals that is virtually meaningless as a scientific benchmark for toxins in today's sewage sludge.
A better look would be the EPA's own sewage sludge survey (January 2010) Or better yet, ask them to start talking about the nasties in its sludge: flame retardants; endocrine disruptors like triclosan and DEHP; and pharmaceuticals.