Here are two links to a copy of the completed application Polk City submitted to the Department of Environmental Protection for the Cardinal Hill WWTF for the original permit. It is quite a lengthy document so that is the reason for the two separate files. Very interesting reading.
Polk City DEP Application for Cardinal Hill WWTF Part 1
Polk City DEP Application for Cardinal Hill WWTF Part 2
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ReplyDeleteNassau Sierrans Win Lawsuit to Stop Crane Island Development
A Nassau County Circuit Court judge has agreed with three members of the Nassau Group and ruled that Nassau County violated the law in approving a planned unit development on environmentally sensitive Crane Island. The three members of the Nassau Sierra group ExCom had sued the county after the commission voted in 2006 to create a Planned Unit Development (PUD) on the island, which is designated as conservation in the county’s comprehensive plan.
The history: There were three failed efforts by Crane Island landowners and developers to amend the county’s comprehensive plan and change the island’s designation to residential between 1995 and 2003. None of the efforts met the approval of the Florida Department of Community Affairs (DCA). So then, the Amelia Island Company, one of Nassau’s largest developers, successfully lobbied the county to use an obscure section of the comprehensive plan to approve a PUD consisting of 169 houses with a 92-slip marina. The existing conservation designation allows for only one dwelling every five acres - a maximum of 41 houses on the property, which consists of two-thirds of the island.
Crane Island is a maritime hammock—with a number of large heritage oaks and magnolias—that lies between Amelia Island and the Intracoastal Waterway. It is directly opposite the Fernandina Beach airport. The northern third of the island is owned by the Florida Inland Navigation District for a dredging spoil site. The lawsuit, brought by Nassau Sierrans Eric Titcomb, Julie Ferriera and Robert Weintraub, claimed that the county did not have the authority to amend the comprehensive plan without getting DCA approval. Judge Brian J. Davis’ December 22 ruling agreed with that position and vacated the county’s order approving the PUD.
The plaintiffs’ victory is the most recent chapter in a long history of tension over the island. In 1991, when the state required counties to have comprehensive plans, Nassau County’s fi rst attempt at a plan was rejected because Crane Island and other environmentally sensitive areas were not protected. In a 1993 negotiated settlement with the DCA, Nassau was required to establish a “conservation” category in its comp plan that included Crane Island. When the Amelia Island Co. decided to press for the approval of a PUD, then-county attorney Mike Mullin met with DCA offi cials to ask if an obscure clause in the county’s comprehensive plan would allow the plan to be “self-amending.” DCA said it would not, but Mullin issued a contrary legal opinion upon which the commission proceeded. “The county ... ignored [DCA] and utilized the policy to approve 169 units on Crane Island without amending the Future Land Use Map designation for Crane Island,” Davis wrote in his ruling.
The case, which lasted more than two years, went to trial in October. Plaintiff witnesses included Shaw Stiller, DCA general counsel, and Mike McDaniel, DCA bureau chief. The plaintiffs’ attorney is Ralf Brooks of Cape Coral, who had also assisted Nassau Sierra with an earlier Crane Island issue. (from The Pelican, by Robert Weintraub, Nassau County Group
SETTLEMENTS END DELAYS FOR PLANNED SEWER PLANT
ReplyDelete0 Comments | Palm Beach Post, Jul 13, 2004 | by TERESA LANE Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
City council members settled four lawsuits Monday with neighbors of a proposed sewage plant on McCarty Road, agreeing to build a 30- foot earthen wall to buffer what ultimately will be a regional plant treating most of the city's waste.
The move means construction can begin immediately.
Both sides declared victory in the settlement, which ends a six- month legal battle over whether the city properly annexed 408 acres for the plant and whether the state Department of Environmental Protection properly issued a permit for a drainage pond at the site.
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Although council members said they expected victory in all four challenges, most said they decided to settle the cases - and pay their own legal bills of roughly $135,000 - rather than face another year of delays and rising construction costs on the $60 million plant. Faced with the second-fastest growth rate in the nation, Port St. Lucie was forced to spend $2 million on a temporary plant to ensure it wouldn't run out of sewage treatment capacity in the wake of the plant's delay, council members said.
Specially appointed city attorney Tom Cloud said it was clear from questioning plaintiffs with the Property Owners of The Reserve Inc. that the lawsuits were ill-founded and designed simply to delay the plant's construction. He also said an annexation lawsuit filed by the St. Lucie County Commission against two unrelated parcels in Port St. Lucie is connected to the sewage plant challenge, and residents of the Reserve agreed to lobby county commissioners to drop that lawsuit as part of Monday's settlement.
"In my 25 years of practicing law, I've never seen what appears to me to be a (more) clear abuse of process in this case," Cloud said. "Their expert said he was hired to analyze the construction permit, and when he told them they didn't have a case, he took the next best thing and looked at a storm-water permit with typos on it."
Key Biscayne Man Sues, Says Sewage Plant Is Poisoning His NeighborhoodBy Tim Elfrink, Tue., Aug. 4 2009 @ 9:00AM Comments (3) Categories: News
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photo by Tim Elfrink
John Rosser taped this sign to his door and moved out in May.
What's worse than a rotten-egg-stench-belching sewage plant in your back yard?
How about an odiferous shit factory that poisons your family and leaves you with severe neurological damage?
That's exactly what John Rosser, a 58-year-old retired pilot, says happened to him in Key Biscayne.
Now Rosser has abandoned his dream home on the tony island, taped ominous "Danger: Poison Gas" signs to his front door, and filed a civil lawsuit against the city. Despite the suit and a violation letter from the Department of Environmental Resources Management, Rosser says Key Biscayne officials have ignored his neighbors' complaints and done nada.
Now Rosser and his wife, Virginia, live with friends and struggle daily with headaches, coughs, and sinus infections.
"We've been poisoned," Rosser says. "I hoped the city would admit what they've done and fix the problem, but they don't seem interested in that."
Rosser bought his home, a modest one-story ranch amidst the island's gleaming mansions, for $130,000 in 1984 after retiring from Eastern Airlines. Now the place is worth $1.2 million -- or at least it was until Key Biscayne decided to put a sewage plant next to his backyard.
After work began in January '08, Rosser and his neighbors noticed a horrific odor. By the time it was finished in October, Rosser couldn't go into his backyard without gagging. "It smelled so bad in our front yard, it came right into our living room," says neighbor Enrique Bahamon.
Late that fall, Rosser and his wife started getting regular illnesses. He visited several doctors, but didn't stumble on the cause until this spring: hydrogen sulfide poisoning. The gas behind the sewage's potent smell can wrack the brain and nervous system if regularly inhaled.
The Rossers fled their home in May and filed a suit against the city and Metro Equipment Services, the contractor who built the plant.
In June, DERM sent Key Biscayne officials a letter. The plant, they said, was built without proper permits and was emitting too much hydrogen sulfide. Two days later, Key Biscayne village manager Chip Iglesias sent residents a letter laying responsibility on Miami-Dade Water and Sewer.
Today, the plant -- a collection of metal boxes and a sewer grate -- is still churning next to Rosser's picket fence. Conchita Alvarez, Key Biscayne's city clerk, says she can't comment on an ongoing suit. Water and Sewer officials also declined to comment.
Neighbors say the odor has lessened recently -- but they worry whether Rosser's symptoms mean their own families have been poisoned.
"We all get headaches," Bahamon says. "We just hope we don't end up like John."
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DERM, John Rosser, Key Biscayne