Clearing the air at the Hernando County Utilities Department will require an open-honest approach to following the Florida statutes regarding raw sewage. Utilities director Joseph Stapf sounded like he was trying to explain away the blatant violations of the Department of Environmental Protection rules with his explanation of why county utility workers dumped raw sewage on to the ground at the Hernando Beach Waste Water Treatment Plant and into a retention pond off Quality Drive near the Wellingtion subdivision.
Mr. Joseph Staph stated that supervisors in the field sometimes had to make judgement calls that the public might not understand. No, Mr. Staph, we do not understand how government can pollute the environment while the private sector is required to follow DEP rules to the letter of the law. It is a clear violation of DEP rules to dump any raw sewage onto the ground, whether it is a teaspoon, or the approximately 20,000 gallons as reported by county workers. Accidental dumping versus the intentional dumping by the county both carry requirements with the Department of Environmental Protection and stiff fines exist for both circumstances.
The excuses made by Mr. Joseph Staph for this "illegal dumping" in emergency situations are just that, excuses. Has Mr. Staph ever considering having any one of the three private waste haulers in Hernando County on contract to cover those emergency situations? The Hernando Beach Waste Water Plant has been plagued with odor problems for years. Maybe this "illegal dumping" is the source of the odor problem that has been right under their noses!
2 comments:
Ms. Covell, I wish you would sit down with Mr. Stapf to discuss these two incidents in more detail. The newspaper reports on these incidents did not fully explain the circumstances, nor has it been reported that DEP has investigated and formally advised that no further action will be taken. DEP also said they found no evidence of any illegal action at the Hernando Beach plant, and I think that once you hear the circumstances of the Quality Drive incident, you will have a better understanding of the constraints on the employees in that circumstance.
Mr. Stapf is new to the position, as you know, and a sea change in a long established culture of work habits does not happen overnight. The professionalism and experience now in the HCUD director's office is something that has not been seen in that position before, and new directions in a department with many long time employees are being implemented as rapidly as realistically possible.
As a former news reporter and long time veteran county observer, I know better than to trust the brief dumbed down and often agenda-driven news stories that appear in both local newspapers, and I would hope that whenever possible you would investigate further before posting comments such as this in reliance on the questionable news judgment and reporting often displayed by our local media.
Yes, Mr. Staph is new and has had to deal with some critical issues in his department. Hopefully, Mr. Staph will take into consideration he serves not only at the pleasure of the county administrator, but also serves the public-at-large; this same public-at-large expect complete compliance regarding health and safety issues facing our county.
In my opinion, Mr. Staph made excuses for bad business practices of his employees who dumped raw sewage which violated the public's trust. His response to the public should have been that this practice would never happen again & then state clearly how he intended to prevent these poor practices from happening in the future.
Mr. Staph made excuses for his employees work behavior even though these practices are clearly prohibited by Florida Administrative Code and the Florida State Statutes.
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