The alert was issued after weekly sampling revealed the level of bacteria has exceeded the level established by state guidelines.

Additionally, a health alert remains in effect for Bayou Chico at Lakewood Park.

The Heath Department advises against any water-related activities in these locations.

I’d say that having shitty water ranks right up there with tar balls wouldn’t you? Especially since the Health Department closes Bayou Texar several times a year. For decades now. Yet, for whatever reason, the political class in Pensacola doesn’t seem to mind. And the environmental groups like the Emerald Coastkeepers and the Riverkeepers don’t care either.

Let’s be sure to put that in the ads to lure vacationers down here. “Visit Pensacola, You’ll like our shit!”

The department will continue to monitor the water quality in these areas weekly. For more information, call the Escambia County Health Department at 595-6786.

OK, so we know the Health Department is doing its job by telling us when we should not go in the water. But what are the politicians for?

Link: Health alert for Bayou Texar

Carpenter’s Creek empties into Bayou Texar. And for decades now, Bayou Texar has been periodically closed by the Health Department as unsafe for use by humans due to fecal contamination. ‘Chronically’ is a more accurate description than periodically. And the reason is because of what is coming out of Carpenter’s Creek.

To bring you up to date with this severe yet overlooked water quality issue, this post recaps it all. Cleaning up Bayou Texar became my interest in November 2007. Four years later and we’re still kicking the can down the road.

That is why I read with amusement this Viewpoint by Chasidy Fisher Hobbs, executive director for Emerald Coastkeepers of Northwest Florida, rehashing the drinking water issue from 2009.

The Dept. of Environmental Protection knew about Bayou Texar’s condition. It was Sherri Myers that pulled the money out of the study that could have led to fixing the problem. Who knows if this effort to examine Carpenter’s Creek will have positive results or, just make for some good press for a while before being set aside for another decade?

Links:

• Viewpoint: We are all obligated to know what’s in our water
• Carpenter’s Creek may get more attention
• Cleaning Up Bayou Texar No Longer A Priority
• Cleaning Up Bayou Texar
• Bayou Texar Closed Again
• Bayou Texar, In Your Head Radio
• Lawsuit Perfect Storm Set In Pensacola

Last week, I found out that efforts to finally locate the sources of bacterial contamination in Bayou Texar were scrapped by some yet unknown city officials. And yesterday what do we see in the PNJ? Another closure. A mere two weeks since Bayou Texar was again closed.

Unfortunately for the environment and people that want to use the waterways, and people living in the pricey homes surrounding Bayou Texar, the Health Alerts in the newspaper are generating as much attention as, oh I don’t know, how about as much attention as H.R. 3400, the Empowering Patients (not government) First Act. Bayou Texar’s water quality is being ignored just as much as the health care initiative that was introduced by Republicans in Congress over a month ago. What’s wrong with this picture?

Yes Virginia, conservatives like clean water too! What is the city’s excuse? And, why would the canceling of the needed research to clean up the Bayou not be newsworthy?

The culmination of that research is represented in a post here entitled Cleaning Up Bayou Texar dated January 6, 2008. At that time, I was encouraged to learn that a water quality study was already underway under the auspices of Dr. Richard (Dick) Snyder, professor of biology at the University of West Florida. And an update to the Jan 6 post was made on January 8, 2008 that summed up where we were at that point in time. It boiled down to the fact that his study would not be completed until late in 2009 or early 2010, which brings us up to date.

UPDATE 01/08/08: Dr. Richard (Dick) Snyder, the biologist responsible for the current study, was prompt to reply to questions I had regarding the study. Thank you Dick for your quick reply. These were the questions . . .

When do you anticipate completing the report? Will the report, or the work being undertaken to produce a report, actually determine the sources or pathology of the fecal contamination as relates to specific properties along the waterway, including rainwater runoff sources? After determining what is happening to the bayou and why things are happening to the bayou, will making recommendations for remediation of the waterway be part of your report or subsequent reports? Is the subject study a UWF financed project or a federal, state, county or city grant-financed project? Basically, who is paying for it?

This is Dr. Snyder’s reply, which addresses every question, in his own words.

The study will be done over two years to incorporate annual variation in water levels. We will try to identify contaminated ground water as opposed to runoff, with the idea that the groundwater will more likely be septic or sewer malfunction. The data will be given to the DOH and ECUA for them to address any identified problems. Financing is from a fine levied against the Target Corp. for contaminating Carpenter’s Creek, through the West Florida Planning Council and with input from the Bayou Texar Foundation, who is providing some additional funding.

So from the standpoint of what happens next as far as sewage in the bayou is concerned, we wait for the report in late 2009 or early 2010. I suppose we can rest easy in the fact that there are no septic systems in use on the bayou itself. The problem appears to be upstream. Meanwhile, residents around Carpenter’s Creek should know to keep an eye out for septic system failures or sewage system failures and report them to the Health Department (595-6722) or the ECUA (969-3303).

It was with eager anticipation that I followed up with Dick yesterday to get a progress report. With the Bayou Texar water quality still coming up in the local media from time to time, I was confident that soon we would be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. Was I ever wrong, and were we ever duped into thinking that the city finally took Bayou Texar seriously.

Dr. Snyder’s reply, short and not so sweet. . .

We were never able to do the study. The funds were diverted to the City of Pensacola’a storm water refit project for the area.

related link: Cleaning Up Bayou Texar

Thanks to Rick for bringing the long-standing and long-ignored problem in Bayou Texar to his program and the citizens of Pensacola. And thanks for the plug for The Lunch Counter.

links: In Your Head Radio, 1620am | Cleaning Up Bayou Texar

Larry B. Johnson, the volunteer in charge of Bayou Texar for the Emerald Coastkeepers is on their board of directors. Larry and I are on the same page on the subject of sewage in the bayou and I have agreed to volunteer to find an end of the sewage problem that has plagued the bayou for so many years. So that’s where I got involved, and now have something to report.

There was a study published by the University of West Florida in September 2006 that was, at that time, the most comprehensive analysis of water quality in Bayou Texar ever done. The Health Department has it for your review on their website. You might need a lawyer and a chemist standing by to assist you in deciphering it. It is very detailed.

After looking at the survey and knowing how many years Bayou Texar has had a sewage problem, I set out to find some answers to these questions. If you have any questions to add, please let me know.

• Does the Health Dept know which systems are in failing condition?
• Where are they? Names and addresses.
• Are any of the properties with failing septic systems within 50 feet of an ECUA sewer?
• If yes, has the Health Dept taken steps to force the property owners to comply?
• Has the Health Dept notified the property owners to repair their systems and if so, have the property owners complied?
• Who is responsible for this problem continuing, the Health Dept or the property owners, or both?
• Are there any outstanding orders for the ECUA to do any sewer hookups, and if so, how many?
• Of those hook-up orders, how many of them are on the offending septic systems in the bayou?

With the cooperation of the Health Department and the ECUA, I can report that there are no septic systems facing Bayou Texar. All of the properties on the bayou are on city sewer. I don’t know how long that has been the case, but it is the case now.

Enforcement of codes as relates to sewage falls under the purview of the Health Department. And, according to Philip Davies there, the methods of enforcement they use are definitive and seem to work well. Most often it is handled with a little education to the property owner, and gets into a legal issue if necessary, but in either case, their actions are effective in correcting a problem.

Davies also said that there is a new study currently underway by UWF that is focused on determining the sources of the fecal contamination in the bayou, which necessarily includes Carpenter’s Creek. Carpenter’s Creek, which feeds into the bayou, extends from the bayou on up to beyond Olive Rd and Old Palafox. One quickly realizes how difficult a project this is when you appreciate the size of the area to examine.

There are currently no pending work orders for the ECUA to hookup residents to the sewer system in the Carpenter’s Creek area and no pending actions by the Health Department to residents in the Carpenter’s Creek area.

I questioned whether the dog park on the bayou was the culprit and the answer is no, it is not. Despite the fact that the testing site the Health Department uses for the bayou is right at the dog park, the fecal contamination is not coming from it. They use that site, as opposed to other locations on the bayou, because that is the part of the bayou that has the most public activity.

That is all I have to report at this time. Will report back with a progress report on the current survey that UWF is doing and when they think it will be finished.

UPDATE 01/08/08: Dr. Richard (Dick) Snyder, the biologist responsible for the current study, was prompt to reply to questions I had regarding the study. Thank you Dick for your quick reply. These were the questions . . .

When do you anticipate completing the report? Will the report, or the work being undertaken to produce a report, actually determine the sources or pathology of the fecal contamination as relates to specific properties along the waterway, including rainwater runoff sources? After determining what is happening to the bayou and why things are happening to the bayou, will making recommendations for remediation of the waterway be part of your report or subsequent reports? Is the subject study a UWF financed project or a federal, state, county or city grant-financed project? Basically, who is paying for it?

This is Dr. Snyder’s reply, which addresses every question, in his own words.

The study will be done over two years to incorporate annual variation in water levels. We will try to identify contaminated ground water as opposed to runoff, with the idea that the groundwater will more likely be septic or sewer malfunction. The data will be given to the DOH and ECUA for them to address any identified problems. Financing is from a fine levied against the Target Corp. for contaminating Carpenter’s Creek, through the West Florida Planning Council and with input from the Bayou Texar Foundation, who is providing some additional funding.

So from the standpoint of what happens next as far as sewage in the bayou is concerned, we wait for the report in late 2009 or early 2010. I suppose we can rest easy in the fact that there are no septic systems in use on the bayou itself. The problem appears to be upstream. Meanwhile, residents around Carpenter’s Creek should know to keep an eye out for septic system failures or sewage system failures and report them to the Health Department (595-6722) or the ECUA (969-3303).

In the same section comes an article from Emerald Coastkeepers, an environmental group with strong ties to BIG law and Air America Radio talk show hosts Mike Papantonio and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., both of whom can lay claim to suing the pants off big corporations from Hudson Falls, NY to a mining town in West Virginia, and BIG pharm and BIG tobacco. This article says that the Coastkeepers are keeping and eye on a BIG company, Archer-Western, doing road infrastructure work for the county. Seems that all the state-required environmental precautions are no match for the occasional signature Florida rainstorm and some runoff goes into a bayou, Bayou Texar.

Curious thing about Bayou Texar is that it is lined with expensive homes with septic systems that leak raw sewage into it, rain or shine, 24-7-365, and the Coastkeepers are not concerned with stopping that. It’s about who has the deepest pockets, not who is doing the most damage.

The PNJ is just playing the responsible role in informing us of the environmental problems around us. And it is also laying the groundwork for the dynamic duo to go after those big, evil corporations again.

Digging deeper into this perfect storm shows the Independent News was the first to bring it up in their November 1^st cover story. Coming off his “landmark environmental victory” in Spelter, W.Va, Papantonio says “I’m going to start doing cases like this in our area. I’m ready for it.” Papantonio sort of laid out his cards in an interview with editor Duwayne Escobedo like this . . .

“We have a generational issue here,” he says. “We had a generation of politicians, media types, businessmen, doctors and professionals who knew better but allowed the environmental devastation to happen anyway. There is going to be a backlash.”

He’s already thinking about the next environmental cases Levin Papantonio and its partners will do in Northwest Florida but he’s not ready to reveal them all yet.

Pressed about it, he does single-out lumber and paper company International Paper. Levin Papantonio filed suit last year on behalf of a handful of Cantonment residents against the company, the world’s largest paper company.

PNJ links: Still a long way to go in curbing toxic emissions
Emerald Coastkeeper monitors runoff problem
Troubled Waters
Nov 1 Independent News Cover Story: Papantonio Promises To Clean Up ‘Backyard’

related links in PNJ’s forum from an anonymous poster named hoagie. That would be me.

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