Escambia County Administrator Jack Brown told Inweekly he is sending county code enforcement and environmental officials to the Shortleaf borrow pit to confirm the dumping of alleged contaminated dirt from the City of Pensacola’s Government St. stormwater ponds that are under construction. He said if wrongdoing is found the county can issue a citation against Shortleaf.
He said the Escambia County Mosquito facility has a mitigation plan with DEP, and it is specific on disposal of soil.
He said he is also calling City administrators Eric Olsen and Keith Wilkins about the complaints by Dr. Gloria Horning, a Tanyard resident.
“I don’t feel it is necessarily environmental racism,” Brown said. “That is a long-standing (county mosquito) facility that has been out there a long time.”
Pensacola City Councilwoman Sherri Myers told Inweekly that Emerald Coastkeeper Laurie Murphy, an experienced certified stormwater inspector, is inspecting the site tomorrow.
“When I was over there the other week I was concerned about the regulations regarding mitigation of soil and other stuff running into the street,” said Myers. “There were no hay bales to keep the soil from migrating off the site.”
Myers added: “I consider it to be dangerous without a fence around it.”
Inweekly also reached out to City of Pensacola Public Information Officer Vernon Stewart. He first wanted to clarify how 3-1-1 handled Dr. Horning’s calls on Sunday.
“Our 311 rep said that the one person who called 311 now believed to be Dr. Horning in hindsight, did not leave a name or number when she left the message,” said Stewart. “The article suggests that we snubbed the caller but this is not the case.”
Steward did not mention whether the city sent anyone to the site on Monday to inspect the stormwater project.
He followed up with Inweekly a little later and said city administrators and public works officials told him the soil is not contaminated, only the groundwater.
Stewart said, per DEP, the city is not required to track where the soil is being hauled.
“On this job, that’s the only thing that is contaminated (the groundwater),” Stewart said. “It’s clean dirt. The groundwater is contaminated from the county facility in the past.”
The PIO said. “On any construction site, we have concerns about safety and want to take necessary precautions.”
He said he needed to gather more information from public works about the fencing around the stormwater ponds. The project is two block west of Pensacola City Hall.
See “Pensacola Speaks” interview with Dr. Horning.
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Note: Inweekly reported earlier this year that the groundwater contamination occurred because the city redesigned the stormwater ponds to be bigger than originally planned. The larger holes drew the contaminated water from a DEP remediation site a block north of the city project. Read “City Decision Jacked Up Costs.”