Dec 17, 2005
Regulators Said Go Easy On Polluters, DEP Staff SayBy MIKE SALINERO
TAMPA - High-level environmental regulators in the Florida Panhandle told their employees to go easy on polluters, stopping inspectors from levying fines and other penalties, according to sworn statements from state workers.
Employees with the Northwest District of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection say they were discouraged from taking tough action against chronic polluters. Some employees said their efforts to crack down on violators disappeared into a "black hole" at the Pensacola headquarters.
Their testimony was given under oath as part of an internal investigation in June by DEP's Office of Inspector General, detailed in documents recently obtained by The Tampa Tribune.
Despite the sworn statements, the DEP investigative bureau exonerated all upper-level district officials except program administrator Connie Lasher. She was reprimanded.
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The concerns Fancher referred to were complaints by employees who said the cases they developed against polluters were reversed by management without explanation.
"It is just sort of ... don't take enforcement, and that is that," said Craig Landry, an enforcement coordinator, in his statement.
The Northwest District long has had a reputation for lax enforcement of environmental laws, according to environmental groups and longtime Panhandle residents. In 1999, an Escambia County grand jury blasted DEP regulators for allowing groundwater to be contaminated with radium, dry-cleaning chemicals, pesticides and petroleum products. The panel even recommended that then-District Director Bobby Cooley be fired.
"You see this pattern at DEP over the years of people being put in charge of the Pensacola office who are either completely in bed with the regulated community or are patsies of the Legislature and the governor's office," said Linda Young, southeast director of the Clean Water Network and a Panhandle native.
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