Dredge Spoil Site Foes Want More Time To Request Hearing

HERNANDO BEACH - A coalition of residents who oppose the site the county has selected to store material dredged from the bottom of the channel here wants more time to file for a hearing with the state.

Residents have filed two separate requests with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. They seek a 60-day extension on the amount of time provided to request an administrative hearing, Ana Gibbs, a DEP spokeswoman, said Wednesday.

The administrative hearing gives the opposition a chance to challenge the validity of the permit, but the evidence must be together as part of the request.

On June 13, DEP gave the county a notice of intent to issue the permit for the spoil site on Eagle Nest Drive. That triggers a 21-day public comment period before the permit becomes final. The county already has a permit to lengthen, deepen and straighten the channel, but needs the disposal permit before dredging can begin.

Richard Doyle, who lives adjacent to the site, wrote in his request to DEP that the notice of intent was missing pages and that he needed time to secure them. Doyle also wrote that he was out of town and his attorney is out of the office for the first part of July.

Lisa Bambauer, Cindy Halley and Ron Basso are the names on the other request. Bambauer and Halley live on Eagle Nest Drive; Basso lives on nearby Minnow Creek Drive.

Their copy of the notice of intent also was missing pages, according to the letter written June 26. That adds to the challenge of mounting a case by the deadline, Bambauer said Wednesday.

"There's a lot of information to get together, and there are a lot of people involved," Bambauer said. "With this time of year of vacations to get it all coordinated takes a little extra time."

Gibbs, of DEP, said the department usually grants or denies extension requests in 15 to 30 days.

The request threatens the county's most recent timetable on the long-awaited, $9 million dredge project.

Assistant County Engineer Gregg Sutton has said a permit for the spoil site from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would be forthcoming after the DEP permit. The county would then seek bids from contractors, and the county hoped to begin actual dredging by early fall.

The county has modified its permit request for the spoil site in recent months to satisfy DEP's concerns, including a withdrawal of a request to fill in a quarter acre of wetlands.

Residents still contend that storing as much as 50,000 cubic yards of slurry would do unnecessary environmental harm to the four-acre lot owned by the Manuel family of Brooksville.

Sutton has said that the months of back and forth with DEP and the time it took to secure the notice of intent is a sign it will withstand a challenge.