City Council agreed Monday night to contract with a Tampa-based environmental firm to monitor hydrogen sulfide released during the course of construction on Marco Island.
Environ is expected to place three experts on the island to assess ambient air, develop a background study of the gas, form an emission and dispersion model and help communicate the findings to the city, public and media.
The tasks are expected to develop a sense of how much hydrogen sulfide is released as a result of dewatering, as well as how it travels downwind. Environ will measure levels in ambient air as well as groundwater, “at various times and various locations throughout the island,” according to a press release from the city.
Two of the experts, Timothy Varney and James Poole, are public health scientists. They will work alongside analytical chemist and risk assessment specialist Tom Gauthier.
City Council’s unanimous vote awarded the contract for those initial tasks at a cost of $58,000. The city has no funds budgeted for the work, so the cost will be absorbed as a construction cost for the sewer assessment areas.
City officials expect the firm to spend 60 to 90 days monitoring on the island. Depending on the findings of those initial tasks, the firm could suggest further action to the city.
At Monday night’s City Council meeting, the request for the contract appeared as a last-minute agenda item. While no one stepped forward from the crowd to speak against the contract, both citizens and some councilmembers did voice their concerns that more needed to be done.
“I’m wondering if we shouldn’t — while we’re waiting for this firm to tell us just how much of a problem we have — if we shouldn’t put a halt on the dewatering process,” Councilor Chuck Kiester said.
Councilor Terri DiSciullo agreed.
“It makes me uneasy that we have to wait another 60 to 90 days to find out if there’s a problem,” she said.
Public works director Rony Joel again assured the council that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection had sanctioned the dewatering, which he said is necessary for any underground construction in a coastal area. He warned that stopping all dewatering on the island would mean stopping most construction, including the Collier Boulevard work.
Some residents charged that the dewatering, aside from allegedly impacting human health, was harming pets and driving marine life from the canals.
While the council did not form any resolution on whether the construction should be stopped, they seemed content to settle with Councilor Rob Popoff’s suggestion that an emergency meeting be called if tests conducted Tuesday by the DEP yield anything alarming.
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Comments » 5
Lolala writes:
Wait a minute. Joel "warned that stopping all dewatering on the island would mean stopping most construction, including the Collier Boulevard work." If that is so, then why does Moss say "the cost will be absorbed as a construction cost for the sewer assessment areas"? If this is a City wide problem then this environmental study will benefit all of us. Why single out one group of citizens to pay for the rest?
SmokeyJoe writes:
I agree with either charging this to the contractor or having the City as a whole pay for it.
SmokeyJoe writes:
I agree with either charging this to the contractor or having the City as a whole pay for it.
OhPlease writes:
I'll tell you why it's going to take 60-90 days of monitoring to get results....stall tactic. 90 days and the N. Barfield district will be nearly finished. There's no reason why they wouldn't have definitive data within a few days. Just the City's spin again and another way to threaten the residents with another big bill to foot.
Good point Lolala. I don't see dewatering going on on Collier. There is no disgusting, yellow/brown water, no stink, but ALL construction would be shut down? Just another unfounded, "threat" of dire consequences by Moss and Joel to keep their pet projects going at any cost.
EdFoster writes:
I have just sent the following to the City Council in preparation for their special meeting this afternoon.
Dear Councilors:
Some have thought that my questioning the circumstances surrounding the accident that occurred and injured the D. H. Higgins worker and a city worker was a shabby attempt to embarrass the city. That is not the case and I apologize if I failed to make that clear in my writing. My concern is that the accident was a warning that should teach us a lesson.
Two men, presumably young, vital, in excellent health, trained and accustomed to working in dangerous environments, were overcome so rapidly by subterranean gases that they could not make it up the ladder to safety and ended up being air-lifted to hospital where they remained for some period of time. My understanding is that the D. H. Higgins worker went into the manhole without his mask because he forgot something and would only be down for a minute. Apparently, he was overcome immediately. The same apparently was true for his rescuer. Can we not conclude that these gases are extraordinarily dangerous?
The concentration in open air is certainly less but our population is neither as young, nor as healthy, nor as accustomed to functioning under stressful conditions as the workers. Furthermore, residents are exposed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week … not for a brief moment to pop down the hole and collect something that was forgotten. Are you so certain that our residents are not accumulating dangerous levels of this toxic substance in their bodies over time? I don’t know if there is a government-established “safe” concentration for continuous exposure, but people I respect whom I know to be intelligent and certainly not to be rumor-mongers, are experiencing unexplained respiratory problems.
Councilors, do you not have a sworn obligation to protect the residents of this island? Do you not have an obligation to err on the side of caution when it comes to protecting their health? Yes, you have called in an environmental company to assess the danger, but do you not have an obligation to order all dewatering stopped until the level of danger can be scientifically established without a shred of doubt? I question whether this can be done in a matter of days. Remember the number of times asbestos shards resurfaced on Site A after the site had been “certified clean” by an environmental consultant. Please do not wait until residents are injured to take preventative measures.
Ed Foster
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