A "shocking pattern of longstanding, systematic infrastructure failures"

 9.24.19: Release detailing the recent settlement between Suncoast Waterkeeper, our co-plaintiffs and Sarasota County to address the County's failed sewage system:

                           

September 2019 | Sarasota Bay 

LOCAL ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS’ “SICK OF SEWAGE” CAMPAIGN RESOLVES SEWAGE LAWSUIT AGAINST SARASOTA COUNTY 

GROUPS SETTLE THIRD LAWSUIT IN THREE YEARS, EXPOSING AND ADDRESSING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF POLLUTION FROM GULF COAST MUNICIPALITIES 

Suncoast Waterkeeper
Our Children’s Earth Foundation

Ecological Rights Foundation

Suncoast Waterkeeper, Our Children’s Earth Foundation, and Ecological Rights Foundation are celebrating the third legal victory in the ongoing “Sick of Sewage” campaign focused on cleaning up Gulf Coast waters. After a series of horrific sewage spills in 2016 despoiled Tampa Bay and other local waters, the environmental groups brought suit against the Cities of St. Petersburg and Gulfport to stop serious and ongoing violations of the federal Clean Water Act. As the groups have done for similar legal enforcement campaigns elsewhere, they focused their efforts on achieving four key goals for municipal wastewater systems: (1) to de-politicize the issues by agreeing to court oversight of overdue infrastructure maintenance and improvements, (2) to provide certainty via mandatory long-term commitments and deadlines, (3) protect local waterways and (4) to ensure public transparency along the way.

During the course of the hard-fought two-year litigation against St. Pete and Gulfport, Suncoast Waterkeeper began investigating sewage spills in Sarasota County. The investigation of Sarasota County’s sewage system revealed a shocking pattern of longstanding, systematic infrastructure failures and disregard for public health and water quality in area waters. In a race to consolidate their far-flung sewage system, the County decommissioned two tertiary, or Advanced Wastewater Treatment (AWT), plants to better centralize their operations. However, the remaining plants that they increasingly relied upon employ only secondary treatment, leaving billions of gallons of highly nitrogenated wastewater as a byproduct. At the same time, demand for the reclaimed irrigation water from the County was disappearing as developers, in managing nitrogen in their stormwater runoff, turned to less polluted options, such as well-water or highly treated reclaimed water from the City of Sarasota.

Prominent Sarasota/Manatee developers

With nowhere else for the nitrogenated wastewater to go, beginning in 2013, the storage pond at the County’s largest treatment facility, at the eastern end of Bee Ridge Road, began periodically overflowing into Phillippi Creek, which flows into Sarasota Bay. To date, spills from the Bee Ridge pond have totaled over a billion gallons since 2013 on at least 394 separate days, adding over 65 tons of nitrogen into Phillippi Creek and the Bay. Meanwhile, the extensive sewage collection system was deteriorating and poorly maintained in a peace-meal fashion, resulting in periodic spills of dangerous raw sewage throughout Sarasota County. 

Though a member of the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program and Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management Consortium, the County failed to embrace data suggesting that their own sewage utility was a major contributor to increasing levels of nitrogen in Sarasota Bay and a related decline in seagrasses, important indicators of the overall health of the estuary.

Steady rise of nitrogen in Sarasota waters
from 1998-present

The environmental groups’ investigation revealed a total breakdown of communications among county staff and decision makers, despite county staff in the Stormwater Utility department expressing some early concerns. There were planning failures, operational failures, communication failures, and inexcusable failure by consecutive administrations and commissions to provide adequate oversight. The huge amount of nitrogen pollution entering Sarasota Bay Area waters from the County’s sewage and wastewater systems became Sarasota County’s dirty secret. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) was aware of the problems for years, but did next to nothing in the face of increasing legal violations and environmental harm.

As a Red Tide of historic proportions wreaked havoc in the region’s coastal waterways for 16 months, the public increasingly connected the dots between devastating algae blooms including Red Tide and the man-made pollutants that fuel the algae blooms, including fertilizers, septic systems and failing municipal sewage systems. No longer placated by the mantra of “naturally occurring” offered reflexively by Governor Scott’s administration and supported by beholden science leaders like Mote Marine, the public called for action. Suncoast Waterkeeper and our co-plaintiffs demanded it and had the strength of the Clean Water Act, decades of federal law and our recent victories in Pinellas County behind us.

Sarasota County Commissioner
Al Maio

In early 2019, the environmental groups initiated a federal lawsuit under the Clean Water Act with an initial Notice including a summary of the critical problems their investigation exposed. Apparently, the County Commissioners were not aware of the crisis until receiving our initial notice letter. To their credit, the Sarasota County Commission showed a willingness to immediately work towards a solution and to avoid protracted litigation. They have been responsive to public’s calls for environmental protection and demonstrated a commitment to fixing their broken sewage system and making big investments in environmental infrastructure moving forward.

Reflecting the Commission’s commitment, County Staff, Administration, and the County Attorney’s Office worked collaboratively with the environmental groups towards solutions in a legal settlement crafted to bring the County back into compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. The settlement secures federal Court enforceable commitments for the County to implement immediate and long-term commitments to:

• end the spills to Phillippi Creek from the Bee Ridge storage pond;

• rehabilitate the aging sewage collection system throughout the County;

• upgrade the Bee Ridge Plant to Advanced Wastewater Treatment; and

• adopt plans and processes to ensure adequate capacity, management, operations and maintenance of sewage infrastructure moving forward.

The County rapidly commenced building additional infrastructure necessary to move water out of the Bee Ridge Pond so as to avoid further illegal discharges of nutrient-rich reclaimed water into the environment. As a result, when the Bee Ridge Pond began overflowing this rainy season, the County's work to start moving water before rainy season arrived helped reduce the volume of water discharged into the environment. While the County has more work ahead of it to solve its problems at Bee Ridge, it is now moving fast to take steps in the right direction.

The DEP initiated their own administrative enforcement action, despite being inactive for 6 years while receiving evidence of the Bee Ridge Pond discharges, which ultimately resulted in a Consent Order that covered a portion of the violations alleged by the environmental groups. While much improved over Governor Scott’s DEP, which consistently failed to enforce environmental laws, the DEP’s Consent Order was far less comprehensive than the settlement between the environmental groups and the County in several ways, for example:

• Settlement goes back 5 years, whereas the DEP Consent Order only goes back to 2018

• Settlement includes detailed, thorough corrective action and prospective requirements for the collection system, incorporating best engineering practices and industry standards

• Settlement includes greater/higher stipulated penalties for future spills and missed deadlines, penalties go to the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program rather than DEP

• Settlement retains Federal Court oversight and enforcement for 6 years

• Settlement includes requirements for increased public notification for future spills

The provisions for continuing jurisdiction and oversight by the federal court are particularly important to the environmental groups and their citizen members. While the County under its current leadership was responsive and thorough, embracing a renewed commitment to improving the health of our waterways and our community's environmental infrastructure, future County Commissioners and administrations might not be. By memorializing the settlement agreement in a federal Court order, this settlement preserves citizens’ rights to hold Sarasota County accountable to their commitments to protect our waterways from sewage pollution. While it will take decades to bring the system up to industry standards and spills will continue in the meantime, the County is on the right track, under federal Court order, to do what is necessary.

Original Press Release
For more information:
Justin Bloom
Bloomesq1@gmail.com
941.275.2922

Pork Chop Politics in Sarasota/Manatee - Coleman

Apropos of this note of the passing of UF historian David Colburn, Liv Coleman, who teaches Political Science at the University of Tampa, and who also has run for office as a Democrat, writes:

Sorry to hear of his passing. I enjoyed his co-authored book on "Florida Megatrends" and thought it was so insightful that I held a whole political salon at my house to discuss it. 

From the article: "He reminded us that despite its name, the United States has been divided for most of its existence. The real problem is not the division, but the tendency to slam the window closed rather than listen to the voices in the noise. 

"Contrary to our angst over razor-thin election margins, Colburn’s scholarship revealed that America was often at its worse when an easy majority had its way for too long, such as the “Pork Chop gang,” conservative Democrats who dominated the Florida Legislature and fought fair reapportionment and desegregation into the 1960s. 

"Colburn was convinced that diversity was America and Florida’s exceptional strength. He also believed that the way to overcoming division was to shine light in dark corners, working on the present by helping people understand the past." 

I think that Republicans in Manatee & Sarasota have been coasting on exactly these kinds of "easy majorities" for far too long, and they have become more lax about what they will tolerate, and brazen about what they will do. That's exactly why we need to keep "shining that light" in "dark corners." That's exactly why I will throw a few elbows sometimes and be a yappy complainer too. 

A lot of the Republicans locally are absolutely slothful campaigners, who completely take for granted their voters and districts. I'm not the only one to note that in the last election cycle, the Democratic candidates around here were hustling MUCH HARDER than their Republican counterparts. 

Joe Gruters

Same goes for the local party organizations. Have you noticed that, for example, the Manatee County Republican Party's official Twitter account has not even tweeted since 2017? Their web page is barely ever updated, and they rarely post on Facebook, and when they do, it is not professional. That is a party that thinks they do not need the voters. 

And even for the more vocal segments of the local Republican Party in Sarasota, this is the party that kept around known white nationalist involved with the Holocaust denial movement Peter Gemma. This is the party that elevated Joe Gruters first to Sarasota County party chair, then to State Rep (only NARROWLY winning against Steve Vernon in the GOP primary), then to State Senate, and now to Florida GOP chair. 

Is Gruters invincible? HELL NO. 

This is my absolute favorite article in the world about Joe Gruters, and I used it in my FB post the day I announced that I was running for office. If you can't find it on the web, I suspect that is because he is probably using online reputation management companies to keep it buried far from where your Google-searching fingers can find it. Please DO NOT SHARE IT. It might be VERY VERY EMBARRASSING for him.

Joe Gruters - HT

Rural Heritage: It's a Hootenanny at Old Miakka Oct.. 6

Manatee Commissioner: Consciousness of Public Participation

Local Government is Not a Spectator Sport

Misty Servia• Sunday, Sep 22, 2019

I believe our citizens should play a meaningful role in the decisions our Board of County Commissioners makes for the community. When the county effectively engages with residents, the result is usually a healthy partnership that tackles issues from different perspectives, yielding the best results for everyone.

Our Board recently approved a $1.5 billion budget, and there were only a handful of citizens who spoke at the numerous public meetings that started in February of this year. Approving a budget to spend our tax dollars may be the most important thing your local government does, but you wouldn’t know it if measured by the public’s interest. Take note that a workshop is planned next February to discuss reducing the millage rate. And yes, we all love a tax break, but it may also result in reduced services, which is concerning to me. How do you feel about that?

Our County has considered implementing a stormwater fee for more than 30-years and is now in a place where it just may happen. We have all experienced some degree of flooding recently, and indicators show our future storms will be even more frequent and intense. A better stormwater system can improve the red tide and algae problems too, which are becoming as common in the summer as traffic is during rush hour. But look, there are different levels of service being considered, and they all come with a price tag. Are you willing to pay for the Cadillac version, or, do you prefer the Buick?

Manatee County is considering a boat ramp parking fee, as well. If you have taken your boat to one of our ramps lately, you have likely experienced a line to launch, not to mention limited trailer parking and ramps that are in disrepair. There is no question that we need more boat ramps and have to catch up on needed maintenance. Our facilities are enjoyed not only by our residents, but visitors and charter captains who make a living on the water. Who should pay to maintain our ramps? Only those who use them? Should our residents be allowed to park for free and require the out-of-town visitors to pay? Maybe we should pay for them out of the general fund, which means everyone pays, whether you are a boater or not, but that option may not sit well with our residents who don’t even own a boat.

I created the "District 4 Citizens Coalition on Growth” to give our citizens a larger voice in their local government. The group meets the third Wednesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. at the Bayshore Recreation Center and discusses timely local issues. We have open seats on the coalition and members of the public are always welcome. I am proud to carry feedback gathered at this meeting to our board and share it with other county commissioners.

Let’s face it, neighborhoods gain greater control over their everyday quality of life when we all come together in discussion, and even when we disagree, we find that we have many things in common too.

Misty Servia is a Manatee County Commissioner who represents District 4. She can be reached at misty.servia@mymanatee.org

Swimming in debt - through growth

Someone might want to hand the Argus Foundation a clue:

If growth pays for itself, as we’ve so often heard in Central Florida, then local governments like Sumter County — the epicenter of The Villages’ development — must be swimming in cash. 

Instead, it’s acting like a government drowning in the costs of growth.
Sumter is so desperate for money that its five Republican county commissioners look ready to vote next week for a whopping 25.6% increase in the current property tax rate. - Orlando Sentinel

UPDATE: 9.11: Commission to unveil new district voting maps - SEE MAPS BELOW

Surprise! Surprise!

With slow and no response to public records requests and with minimal public notice, Sarasota County will unveil its proposed new District-level maps next week. All this stems from the Board's decision in April to explore reconsideration of the boundaries of the five county districts, in light of the new Single Member Voting.

Please attend the County Commission meeting Wednesday morning 9 AM:

County Administration Building

County Commission Chambers, 1^st Floor

1660 Ringling Blvd, Sarasota

Why this matters: Cathy Antunes

Show your opposition to this “plan”. An Open to the Public session will 

precede the Redistricting discussion. See you on Wednesday!

 <<<<BREAKING NEWS: Here are the maps Spitzer will present Wednesday:>>>>

Note: Above maps courtesy of Rachel Hackney of the Sarasota News Leader

Wednesday 9.11: 9 a.m. at the County Commission 1660 Ringling Blvd:
Open to the Public

Kurt Spitzer

Kurt Spitzer, redistricting consultant hired by Sarasota County with a no-bid
contract, will review the “alternative” District maps created with private 

input from individual County Commissioners.
How’s that FL Sunshine Law workin’ for ya? 

Board of County Commissioners Agenda: Page 1
1. OPEN TO THE PUBLIC – (Three-minute time limit per person.)

How open is it?  From The Sarasota News Leader:

Additionally, county Media Relations Officer Drew Winchester
confirmed with staff that, as of late afternoon on Sept. 4, three of the
commissioners — Charles Hines, Nancy Detert and Christian Ziegler —
have scheduled one-on-one telephone conversations with the consultant
who is handling the redistricting initiative for the county,
Kurt Spitzer of Tallahassee. The Sarasota News Leader

Will this telephone conversations be recorded? Will it be known how long
they lasted, what was discussed?

While the consultant and commissioners huddle over the phone preparing their own maps, the information needed by and promised to the public is being withheld.

Is it ignorance or incompetence?

It isn't ignorance. The commissioners were told during the final open to the public comments on August 27 that the deliverables from Spitzer and Associates (block-level GIS data) were not publicly available.

It might be incompetence. 

County staff says, "The [block level] data was in an Aug. 2 memorandum from Spitzer to the County Commission." 

The memo, however, does not contain the county-wide block needed by the public to produce their own redistricting maps. Instead, it provides info for "key growth blocks by district."  

Despite repeated public records requests from several citizens, as of September 5, the County and Spitzer had provided block-level population data for only:

1. 6% of the population (23,153 out of an estimated 417,000 Sarasota County residents)
2. 1% of the blocks (92 out of about about 7,500 Sarasota County census blocks) 

Finally on Sept. 6, a public records request for block data from The Sarasota News Leader was responded to. According to the county,  the entire block data spreadsheet is now here.

By the deadline [contract deadline July 31] , just one of the deliverables below -- Part (c) -- was delivered -- two days late, on August 2.

Part (b) was provided to the public late on September 6

Spitzer & Associates has not fulfilled their Task 1 contractual obligations, and the county has been laggard in providing the data necessary for the public to prepare alternate maps. (see below)

If it's not incompetence, they know exactly what they're doing -- withholding information to prevent an informed public response to the maps being presented on September 11.

Image of districts formerly used on BCC web page

===

By the deadline, just one of the deliverables below -- (c) -- was provided:

Copies of Task 1 Deliverables from SC PO #193092.. Vendor: KURT SPITZER AND ASSOCIATES INC...Including:  

(a.) GIS - The 2010 and 2018 population estimates in file geodatabase or shapefile format at the 2010 Census Block level of geography. 

(b.) Spreadsheet - Block-level results will be summarized by commission district and exported to Excel format. 

(c.) Report – A narrative report describing the methodology used to update the 2010 Census data. THIS WAS PROVIDED 

(d.) Map - A “heat map” in PDF format showing 2010-2018 growth by block. It will be shaded semi-transparent with imagery as a base. Commission district boundaries will be shown. A table summarizing the population estimates by BCC District will be included on the map showing the following 2018 information:  

 BCC District number Average (mean) population  Actual population Deviation from the mean Percent deviation White population and Percent white population Black population and Percent black population Hispanic population and Percent Hispanic population Other population and Percent other population.

9.11: Protect rural heritage or promote urban sprawl

Citizens' Proposal to Cut Density of Northern Hamlet in Half

Wednesday, September 11,  1:30 pm

Sarasota County Commission, 1660 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota

Developers' Proposal to Double Density of All Three Hamlets

Thursday, September 19,  5:00 pm

                          Sarasota County Planning Commission, 1660 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota

Rural Heritage

The fate of 15,000 acres in far east Sarasota County is on the line this month, as County officials weigh competing proposals from citizens and developers.

On September 11, the County Commission will first consider whether to authorize processing of a citizen petition to amend the Comprehensive Plan, as allowed by the County Code.

The petition -- the first ever brought by citizens, not developers -- would reduce the density of 6,000 acres at the northeast corner of Fruitville Road and Verna Road from Hamlet development (.4 units per acre - clustered to one unit per acre) to Rural Heritage Estate (at one unit per five acres), consistent with surrounding homes in that area. The change is promoted by the Miakkka Community Club, representing homeowners nearby, and supported by Control Growth Now. The petition -- indeed the very idea of a citizen petition -- was opposed by the Board-appointed Planning Commission.

Next, on September 19, the Planning Commission will consider a proposal by the developer of that north Hamlet to double its clustered density to two units per acre, as well as for the two other Hamlets to the south, provided that the developer agrees to hook up the County's already overstressed water and sewer utilities. That change -- which would impact 15,000 acres in toto -- is opposed by the County's Development Review Committee, which concluded that it "does not appear to be warranted," as well as by County planning staff and Control Growth Now. (More here.)

Both one unit-per-acre and two units-per-acre are urban densities under the Comprehensive Plan. Control Growth Now has long advocated that such urban sprawl does not belong in the eastern rural lands.

Rural Heritage:Miakka Schoolhouse

On September 11, 2019, you can help a rural heritage community hold the line on broken county promises and thwart another construction invasion.

At 1:30 pm, the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners will decide either to

protect our rural heritage

or 

promote urban sprawl.

Sprawl east of I-75

The Miakka Community near Verna Road and Fruitville Road represents one of the oldest neighborhoods in our county. It's a strong voice. Even if you don't live in East County, this is your concern – what's happening there is a harbinger of what’s coming.



When density in your neighborhood jumps before you turn around, you’ve been had – by developers who changed the rules through sleight of hand. Before you can say "traffic jam," your peaceful neighborhood is a memory.

Out east, residents are fighting back against developers who want to more than triple the density of land as currently zoned. This is leapfrog development!

With the theme of Sarasota Country, this active community adopted the slogan:

"Keep the Country...Country

Rural Heritage - Not Urban Sprawl."

The Miakka Community aims to protect rural heritage land from egregious development and density. This is a fair fight against the unfair developers-take-all boondoggle.

We can all support this community at the commission meeting on September 11, 2019, at 1660 Ringling Blvd. (support agenda item CPA 2019-C to protect Rural Heritage)

Let's be witness to this opportunity for our commissioners to clearly demonstrate that they do NOT support URBAN SPRAWL

More info

This fight is for all of us!

 

Do we want leapfrog development? More County Utilities feeding nitrogen to our waterways? Do we want to lose our rural heritage?

"Nobody told us" say Sarasota's elected leaders

"Hear no evil" was the refrain at Sarasota County's budget workshop the other day.

Top to bottom: Sarasota
Commissioners Al Maio, Mike Moran, Christian Ziegler, Charles Hines, Nancy Detert
Bottom right: 20 years of county data indicating rising nitrates in Sarasota waterways

When the issue of the degraded condition of Sarasota's wastewater facilities came up, Sarasota's elected officials bravely faced the fact that their public duty requires them to invest $150 million in the facility in order to meet state DEP standards.

They then concluded the workshop by covering their posteriors (around 2 hr 31 min):

“Were we asleep at the wheel?” Commissioner Christian Ziegler asked, referencing Detert’s earlier remarks.. . . He remembered asking [County Administrator Jonathan] Lewis, Ziegler continued, about comments he had heard in the community about wastewater spills. Lewis’ response, Ziegler said, was that the county generally had no problems except during hurricanes and other heavy rain periods.

Then just a few days later, Ziegler added, he heard about the federal lawsuit.

“I talked to previous commissioners,” asking if they were aware of the problems, Ziegler pointed out. “Nobody had any idea, I think.” Sarasota News Leader

If Sarasota's elected officials now believe that crucial, economically significant information was systematically withheld from them, why not get to the bottom  of this mystery?

“I can’t remember anybody ever coming to me, privately or publicly,” [Commissioner Charles Hines] added, to suggest the need for the upgrade of the Bee Ridge facility.

The reason the commissioners were told nothing about the water treatment plant problems, [Commissioner Mike] Moran indicated — based on what he had heard — was that previous staff members felt the commissioners never would consider paying a high price to resolve the issues. (SNL)

Mike Mylett, left, was only appointed head of wastewater in April,
Commissioner Nancy Detert tried to blame him for not telling the Board last year
about problems at the facility. Administrator Jonathan Lewis on the right.

Well now. Instead of indiscriminately throwing staff under the bus, our commissioners might have taken another tack: ordering an independent investigation to find out what persons, what assumptions, what mechanisms, what puppeteers are concealing significant information from public view.

When he ran for reelection in 2018, Commissioner Al Maio claimed he'd kept Sarasota property taxes low for 20 years, but, somehow, this came at no cost to the environment or infrastructural conditions, to parks and other services, or to long range planning and development. Maio was reelected by voters who apparently are drawn to magical thinking.

It may be past time for citizens of Sarasota to buy a clue for our elected officials -- to say something like:

If you don't know how come you're not apprised of key data relating to our economy, environment, and infrastructure, don't you think it might be a good idea to find out how and why that is?

How does critically important information for the people of Sarasota get suppressed? At whose bidding? How long has this been going on?

Are Commissioners Moran and Detert going to run on a platform of "nobody told me" in the 2020 election?

Perhaps it's all too clear, Commissioners. You know the trail would lead right back to you and your friends, whose ambitious large-scale activities have long contributed to the rise in nitrates feeding Red Tide in our waters. (At your morning session on Affordable Housing, developer Pat Neal thanked you for lower impact fees here than in Manatee County.)


If you choose not to investigate, what does this say about the value you place upon "hard truths"?

Oops we did it again

FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF Environmental Protection Marjory Stoneman Douglas Building 3900 Commonwealth Boulevard Tallahassee, Florida 32399-3000

Ron DeSantis Governor Jeanette Nuñez Lt. Governor Noah Valenstein Secretary

---

Notice of Submission Pursuant to Section 403.077, F.S., the Department of Environmental Protection has received the following Public Notice of Pollution for a reportable release. All information displayed was submitted by the reporting party. Type of Notice: Initial Report Date of Notice: 08/15/2019 Incident Information Name of Incident: BR WRF Reuse 081519 State Watch Office Case Number: 4596 Start of Incident: 08/15/2019 10:30 Incident is on-going as of: 08/15/2019 16:01 Incident Description Earlier this morning, due to the continuous rains and flooding conditions in the area, the reclaimed water storage pond at the Bee Ridge Water Reclamation Facility began to overflow through the emergency spillway. Reclaimed water in the pond is water that has been fully treated, meets all public access reuse standards and is typically used for irrigation purposes. Staff has begun sampling at the pond and downstream to monitor the effects of the emergency discharge. Staff will continue to monitor the situation and make every effort to minimize the volume and duration of the event. We will monitor the water flowing from our reuse holding pond to Philippi Creek, and take samples Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until such time that the demand for reuse increases, and the spill ceases. Incident Location Facility/Installation Name: Bee Ridge WRF Address Line 1: Address Line 2: Directions: City: State: FL Zip Code: Coordinates (in decimal degrees): Lat: 27.301835838888838, Long: -82.39068863589023 Click to view Incident Location Impacted Counties: Sarasota Incident Reported By Name: David Hawkins Title: Chief Operator Phone: (941) 861-6790 E-mail Address: dhawkins@scgov.net On-Site Contact Name: Patricia Nihart Phone: (941) 861-6790 Ext: E-mail Address: pnihart@scgov.net To view a list of all received Public Notices of Pollution or to modify your e-mail subscription settings, please click the link below: Public Notice of Pollution Florida Department of Environmental Protection

Update: Pat Neal explains waste spill caused by his workers

"Refreshingly Simple" Growth in Sarasota and Manatee Counties

Lakewood Ranch is big developer territory, and SRQ Magazine was on the spot when Sarasota County Administrator Jonathan Lewis came to update business folk there the other day.

And if SRQ Magazine is to be believed, growth here is all -- or mostly -- wonderful. SRQ's Olivia Liang put it this way:

This sold-out event demonstrated the unified efforts of the SRQ region and revolved around a refreshingly simple concept: growth.  

The Nine Muses: Mantegna

Doubtless inspired by the Muses of Insatiable Development, SRQ's Ms. Liang then launched into an operatic Paeon to growth:

Tourism continues to grow, with Nathan Benderson Park bringing in a net $47 million for sports tourism in the past year. And between the rebranding of the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature in downtown Bradenton to the institution of roundabouts to regulate the flow of school traffic on Honore, the expansion of the Legacy Trail for resident-use and the construction of the new Atlanta Braves Spring Training Stadium that was widely funded by the private sector and will be owned by Sarasota County, the region shows no signs of slowing. 

However, Liang did need to report a little water issue, seeing as Administrator Lewis inconveniently brought it up:

But one looming presence seemed to unite the two counties more than any other: water quality. With red tide and blue and green algae blooms affecting the “economic lifeblood of the state,” according to Lewis, both counties agree that the improvement of water quality “needs to happen on a statewide basis.” But at the same time, “we can’t wait on everybody else,” added Lewis, referencing the June Sarasota County Water Quality Summit with 700 attendees, demonstrating the active and current conversation surrounding a proposed $150 million wastewater treatment plan that would improve drinking, fishing and swimming water, in combination with a $5 million septic-to-sewer program.

Fish killed by disastrous Red Tide in 2018

Apart from that one teenie-weenie problem, God's in his heaven and all's good in Sarasota and Manatee, according to SRQ:

In its most recent Citizen Survey, Sarasota County reported that 97% of the surveyed described their overall quality of life as excellent (45%) or good (52%), which is up from previous years. 

But how sure are we that our quality-of-life satisfaction will continue? Not very, it seems.

Some area developers

That "Citizen Opinion Survey," presented to the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners some months ago, happened to make it clear that the public is openly dissatisfied with the nature, direction and management of the local economy, in two ways:

First, we 're worried about the utter lack of economic diversity -- our workers do construction -- there's little in the way of manufacturing, or hi-tech businesses. (The Board's notion of a clean upscale business to promote is James Gabbert's Waste Transfer Facility (WTF), now rising to glare at the Celery Fields and the highway).

Absence of diverse economic drivers is a key flaw of Sarasota Manatee area

Second: Over the past 5 years, the single greatest concern expressed by the people contacted by this survey is GROWTH - the very theme that SRQ celebrates as the glory of Sarasota/Manatee:

Growth - major issue for residents of Sarasota County

GROWTH is by far the single greatest threat to our quality of life, according to this survey - at 24% in 2018, it dwarfs CRIME -- the runner up at 10%, TRAFFIC (5%), and JOBS (4%).

Indeed, add together the concern ratios for CRIME, TRAFFIC and JOBS (you get 19%) and it's still less than the portion of residents who've cited GROWTH as the primary issue for the past five years.

So there you have it: The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance, along with the Builders and Contractors, the Realtors, the Argus Foundation, SRQ Magazine and our elected officials -- one happy choir singing the praises of Growth -- the area's biggest problem, according to taxpayers, who are perhaps more mindful of trending issues:

From 2010 to 2018, the Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR) of the University of Florida says Sarasota County’s population climbed 10%, putting the county in the highest growth category in the state.The  

As of April 1, 2018, BEBR estimated Sarasota County’s population at 417,442. By 2040, BEBR’s projections show, the county could have as many as 600,800 residents. The Sarasota News Leader

Moran

Ziegler

Detert

Maio

Hines

During the past five years while growth has been the biggest worry on residents' minds, our elected officials have:

1. Ignored county data that documented a long-term, significant rise of nitrogen in our bays and waterways:

2. Neglected Sarasota's aging, leaking, spilling wastewater plant and pipes;

3. Fallen far behind funding roadwork to keep pace with new development*;

4. Gone to unprecedented lengths to weaken Comprehensive Plan and other important constraints on developers, and

5. Approved several large-scale developments in east Sarasota County, with more in the planning pipeline.

The Tischler Report, commissioned by Sarasota County in 1999, was supposed to prove that growth paid for itself. Its findings proved the opposite -- we pay for growth. Local leaders quickly buried the report.

Tischler's analysis showed we pay for growth

So this might invite the question: what will Sarasota and Manatee look like two or three decades?

It's refreshingly simple:

*The Sarasota News Leader (subscription required)