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Hernando Today

Dredge Complaint Cites Water Quality, Flooding Concerns

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By TONY MARRERO

Hernando Today

Published: August 5, 2008

HERNANDO BEACH - Dumping thousands of cubic yards of slurry dredged from the bottom of the Hernando Beach channel onto a property on Eagle Nest Drive could harm the water quality of nearby Minnow Creek and poses a flooding risk for neighboring homes.

That's the contention of 31 residents who filed a petition with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on Monday to try to stop the county from dumping some 50,000 cubic yards of spoil into a temporary containment berm on the property.

Most of the spoil will be trucked away after it dries. Some will be left on the property for fill material as part of a deal struck with the owners, the Manuel family of Brooksville. The Manuels plan to put homes on the land.

The group, comprised of people who live on or own property within half a mile from the property, wants a state administrative law judge to block the pending permit DEP is poised to issue to the county for the spoil site. Twenty of the petitioners live on Eagle Nest Drive.

"The site is not consistent with the public interest," the petition states.

The 15-page document outlines 11 areas of concern. Among them:

- The county has not given DEP with "reasonable assurances" that the water draining from the material won't negatively impact adjacent marshes, Mullet Canal and Minnow Creek by increasing salinity, PH content, and turbidity.

- The county has not shown that the berm, which will cover about two acres and have walls four to five feet high, would not impact surface water flow and cause nearby homes to be flooded. The petition cites a concern that the rain and high tides of a tropical storm or hurricane could "erode the berm and cause catastrophic failure."

- Though the county has changed its original plan to fill about a quarter acre of wetlands, the petition contends that the project still could negatively impact wetlands on the site.

- The county has not provided enough evidence that changing the permanent floodplain elevation by leaving fill dirt for the Manuels will change the existing drainage patterns and create flooding problems for nearby homes.

- The county could run afoul of its own land use ordinances and Federal Emergency Management Agency regulations by increasing the risk of flooding to residents. The petition contends that could threaten the county's eligibility for the National Flood Insurance Program.

- The county has not adequately studied other disposal sites.

DEP has 15 days to determine whether the petition provides adequate grounds for a hearing and if so, forwards it on to the state's Division of Administrative Hearings, said department spokeswoman Pamala Vazquez.

Once the division receives the request, it will notify the petitioners and ask for dates they are available for a hearing. Those dates must fall between 30 and 70 days after the petitioner receives the notification from the DOAH.

DEP has already forwarded one petition, Vazquez said. Ed and Ann Oz of Mangrove Drive in Hernando Beach listed similar concerns about water quality in their petition.

Once the division receives the petitions, it notifies the petitioners and asks for dates they are available for a hearing. A judge must rule on the petitions before DEP can issue the final permit for the spoil site.

Assistant County Engineer Gregg Sutton, who is overseeing the $9 million dredge project, declined to comment on the petition's contents Monday. Sutton called the petition a "legal and procedural matter for DEP."

"It really is completely out of our hands at this point, so it isn't appropriate or even relevant to comment," Sutton said.

The petitions threaten to push back the start of the long-awaited project to lengthen and deepen the channel that is currently so shallow that officials and residents call it a safety hazard. Officials had hoped to have a contractor hired and dredging commence by the fall. Sutton said he couldn't speculate on how long the project could be delayed.

"We remain optimistic we're going to get the dredge project done, but we're going to see how this all turns out," he said.

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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