On the appointment of Juan Portuondo to the water district governing board: "R" is for Rick Scott and the Race to the Bottom: by gimleteye

Rumors surround the Rick Scott appointment of former Montenay official Juan Portuondo, of Key Biscayne, to the governing board of the South Florida Water Management District. By any yardstick, Portuondo's qualifications are bizarre for an appointee to a government agency whose major mission is fixing the polluted Everglades.

Everglades pollution ties back to Big Sugar billionaires who, for decades, have used the Everglades as their waste facility for phosphorous runoff. But not just phosphorous. Years ago, sugar polluters and the South Florida Water Management District blamed high levels of mercury in the Everglades mainly on waste incinerator plants. The kind of waste incinerator plant where Juan Portuondo made his money.

Reviewing Portuondo's professional experience, The Broward New Times writes that in the 1990's, Portuondo "... was president of Montenay Power Corp., which ran the county-owned (Miami-Dade) trash incinerator plant at 6990 NW 97th Ave. in Miami. ... Environmental and safety problems at Montenay piled up over the years, according to a series of Miami Herald reports from the time. Smokestacks billowed heavy metal contaminants into the air. Rainwater soaked with trash ran underground. A worker was electrocuted and another burned by a fireball. All that pollution earned Montenay a record $640,000 fine in 1991 from the Department of Environmental Regulation."

Later in his business career, Portuondo surfaced in a highly critical report. A 2005 Miami Herald story on the Inspector General report noted: "... a "very troubling" instance in which Juan Portuondo, a former official with Montenay Power Corp., which manages the county's recycling plant, received a contract worth $68,000 to inspect the plant. The problem, noted the audit, is that Portuondo continued to get paid by Montenay as a lobbyist at the same time."

Portuondo was paid by the County to inspect a waste facility charged with mercury pollution at the same time he was being paid by the waste facility to lobby the county. Toxic levels of mercury have severe public health effects including development disorders and deformed fetuses. Recent science increasingly points in the direction of hot spots in the Everglades, in canals managed by the water district flowing from lands owned by the sugar billionaires.

To New Times, Lane Wright, the governor's press secretary, offered up a simple explanation for why Portuondo was picked. "Gov. Scott feels he was the best qualified for the job. That's it. Period," he said. When asked about Portuondo's long history of environmental problems, Wright said he "wanted to emphasize" that Portuondo was picked because he was the most qualified." You cannot make this stuff up.