From IN editor Duwayne Escobedo:
RED CLAY DEBATE
There are a few issues on Pensacola Beach that will always start a melee, like condos, taxes, beach safety and RED CLAY.
Right now, the fight is over red clay and whether Roads Inc. is or isn’t hauling it to the beach and mucking up the world-famous sugary, squeaky clean, white sands.
County ordinances absolutely prohibit any red clay being carried to Pensacola Beach.
Dave Hemphill is adamant in a John Wayne kind of way that Roads Inc. is complying with the law and challenges anyone to prove otherwise. The project manager for Baskerville Donovan is overseeing the $12 million Via de Luna improvements.
“I will guarantee no red clay is being brought onto the beach on this project or any other project in the past 14 years,” he says.
On the contrary, Hemphill says to date that Roads Inc. has actually trucked off 1,900 dump truck loads (about 35,000 cubic feet) of prohibited red clay. Some of that includes red material, such as concrete, asphalt, sand and shells.
“It’s not like you can take a butter knife and peel off the clay,” he says. “It migrates.”
But Hemphill does fault Roads Inc. for failing to cover up exposed areas and remove clay in a timely manner as required.
“Some weeks they’ve done very well, some weeks they’ve done very poorly,” he says.
The project is scheduled for completion in October.