Poison, by gimleteye

This week Miami New Times ("Poisoned Well: What was contaminating our drinking water? Who knows--Dade officials stopped looking") features the story and deserves the thanks of readers. Our index feature, "rock mining", contains numerous posts on the subject. I have some additional comments:

The lead story in today's Miami Herald is "Moving Out: High costs driving down South Florida's population". A key component of the increasing costs to ordinary people, is the political corruption that allows no one to be held accountable (ie. fired) for putting our drinking water supply at risk of cancer-causing chemicals.

The story of benzene contamination has been covered by The Miami Herald at several points in time. Last September, the Herald covered the protest by rock miners against the federal litigation waged by environmental groups--through which the benzene contamination was disclosed.

In July, the Herald reported on the finding by Judge William Hoeveler of gross negligence in the supervision of permitting by the US Army Corps of Engineers for the rock mines in West Dade. The report ends as follows:

"Hoeveler covered broad ground in the 177-page order but focused considerable attention on the 2005 discovery of benzene, a cancer-causing agent, in the wellfield -- a fact ''shockingly'' revealed to the judge, and the public, during court arguments a year after the contaminant shut down seven county wells.

Though a $1 million county investigation never pinpointed a source, a petroleum-based blasting agent ranked as a prime suspect. Industry experts disputed that the material was the source, but miners say they have since switched explosives anyway.

County regulators insist the wellfield water is safe, the benzene plume has dissipated and existing treatment systems can handle remaining traces.

But Hoeveler clearly wasn't satisfied with the response from county and federal regulators to either the chemical or research from federal geologists suggesting the limerock around the wells are so porous that bacteria also pose an elevated risk to the water supply.

''Even if the water treatment plants are able to treat the raw water for the anticipated amounts of benzene, it is nevertheless of grave concern that benzene will now regularly affect a previously pristine aquifer,'' he wrote."

But the Herald failed to observe the salient point raised by Miami New Times: the cloud of secrecy--essentially a protection racket-- lead by county commissioner Natacha Seijas, on behalf of powerful rock miners (represented by Republican partisans like Miguel De Grandy), and the likely firing of Bill Brandt, WASD chief, for his anxiety for the safety of what comes out of your tap. Since the Herald had covered the firing of Brandt, and since the Herald occasionally dips its toe into the endemic failures of county government, you would think that the Herald would have considered the story worthy of in-depth exploration.

Oh well.

New Times could have mentioned that the litigation, through which benzene contamination was disclosed, caused the rock mining industry to push for midnight legislation in May, 2006 (which Miami Dade legislator was responsible for putting this into the last minute hopper?) seeking to cap its exposure to a new water treatment plant that is required, now, as a result of its activities.

The Herald reported the story (May 8, 2006) in a single paragraph, "Last week, however, mining industry lobbyists helped push a bill through the state Legislature that would add new protections at considerable expense to the miners -- a $100 million-plus tab for a new treatment plant intended to reduce those risks." Two years later, and where's the story now? How much have the rock miners paid? Is there a treatment plant? What is the cost? Who will pay for its operation?

Miami New Times does make the key connection: "Without the cheap rock coming out of the Everglades, the building of South Florida as we know it today would not have been possible." Today, rock miners are spilling out all over the Everglades watershed, seeking to exploit the mutually reinforcing needs of cement and road builders and "water storage reservoirs". A rock mine, in West Palm Beach, called Palm Beach Aggregates was the focal point for public corruption that is sending two PB county commissioners to jail.

It was Governor Jeb Bush who created the Palm Beach Aggregates deal, having learned how Miami Dade rock mines were considered to be "water storage". The story that still needs to be written, is what kind of water quality comes from these lifeless pits that lobbyists and engineering companies promoted as the "solution" to Everglades restoration.

Finally, Miami New Times gets to the story of willful endangerment of the public by John Renfrow, who replaced Brandt as head of the Water and Sewer Department. This is a critical part of the story, that The Miami Herald reports never reported from lengthy depositions and court testimony that is publicly available information.

"Brant wrote again to Renfrow in May, after Caveda detected a sharp spike in the benzene levels only a few days after blasting took place at the White Rock quarry. Brant asked DERM to notify the State of Florida, the EPA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, "and all the agencies permitting the rock mining activities in the area of the results of the investigation."

But that didn't happen. Two days later, Renfrow called Brant's requests "inappropriate and premature ... it is not possible at this time to conclusively identify a source or determine liability for the documented benzene contamination." At one point, Brant would later testify, Renfrow even suggested terrorists were behind the benzene — again despite the abundant evidence that the carcinogen was coming up through the water supply and not seeping down.

Meanwhile DERM insisted the spike in benzene reported by Caveda represented a different contamination, entirely separate from the benzene readings just more than a mile away. In a recent interview, DERM pollution control division chief Wilbur Mayorga explained the agency's rationale: If the two sites represented the same contamination, benzene should be detected at the wells between them, and it wasn't.

But New Times discovered that DERM barely sampled those wells over the next three months. And those that were monitored — in June and July — did, in fact, contain benzene. Nevertheless, Renfrow used this reasoning — that the contaminated wells were unrelated — to justify DERM's decision not to aggressively sample from around the rock mines.

Brant was flabbergasted at Renfrow's claims. But he would not write any further memoranda about the contamination. Not because he didn't want to, but because he was ordered not to. "I was told not to write any more memos to Joe Ruiz, the assistant county manager," Brant later testified."

As it happens, Miami Dade rock miners are being issued permits, right now, for additional rock mining activity within the area under litigation in federal court. That should rise to the level of attention by The Miami Herald, shouldn't it?

And lastly, Mayor Carlos Alvarez needs to know that the county manager, George Burgess, has completely let down the public for failing to grasp how demoralized and demoralizing the leadership of DERM and WASD has been to the important mission of protect public health and the environment.

Someone needs to be held accountable. Someone needs to fired, or, thrown out of office. (Maybe the state attorney, instead of prosecuting college kids for filing bad petitions seeking the recall of county commissioner Natacha Seijas, should be working with the FBI on public corruption related to these issues.)

Maybe the law enforcement professional, Mayor Carlos Alvarez, should be the person held accountable.

Yes I am angry about this. And the reason, in large measure, is because the rock mining industry, in cahoots with county commissioners and developers who coveted land near the rock mines and wellfield for suburban sprawl and commercial/industrial development suppressed the investigation by environmental agencies of the security of the wellfield protection zone.

For their part, government agencies-- like the US Army Corps of Engineers-- turned a blind eye from the direction of political and economic pressure. All this was happening, of course, long before Carlos Alvarez was elected county mayor-- but it is no excuse for the indifference he is showing to the horrendous performance of his environmental "managers" and the lax supervision by George Burgess.

Certainly, in Miami Dade county anyone in a position of power is tone deaf to the life and death issues that come out of the water tap. That should be a crime.