Venice on the web
A semi-regular column

EPA criminal investigation into pollution control appears to be coming to a head
Details are still hush-hush; Hunt scrambles to distance himself by trying to privatize the division in a hurry
-- John Patten, 06/07/03, revised 06/08/03
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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Related:
EPA still digging
-- Venice Gondolier Sun, 06/11/03

Fear and loathing in Venice takes an interesting new turn
Just when city hall was settling into a comfortable level of routine paranoia, just as the populace was getting bored with the FAA investigation and with numerous upcoming and pending lawsuits against the city by its citizenry, things got weirder.

Way weirder.

The EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency. Remember them?

The EPA. Three letters that may soon make everyone forget about the FAA and their ongoing investigation into allegations of diversion of revenue.

If things shake out the way they look like they will shake out, the ongoing EPA investigation into the city's pollution control practices is going to make the FAA debacle look like the city and the FAA were newlyweds on a handholding stroll past the town's gazebo. The shake out appears to be coming down soon, possibly within the next month.

Publicly, City Manager George Hunt has created an interesting diversion by talking about privatizing the wastewater treatment plant. Originally citing economic reasons, recent newspaper accounts now have him quoted as talking about ongoing strife between management and staff. The public may actually go for this one, the move could be seen publicly as a way to finally bring an end to the bad publicity that the department has earned.

But don't get your hopes up - it's not quite going to work out that way if Hunt's plans come to fruition. According to inside sources, Hunt is talking about canning the entire staff while keeping the existing supervisors and placing them above whatever company accepts the contract. There's even been a strange sounding speculation that certain city employees are thinking of starting up a company so that they can get the contract.

Oh, and this is the good part: Hunt wants to have it all wrapped up, bow tied and under the tree by Christmas, a time frame that is seemingly impossible and ludicrous unless he puts the plant up for auction on E-Bay. As bizarre as city politics is getting, that might not be an unrealistic option in Hunt's mind.

So why the sudden rush to sell? What lit a fire under Hunt's chair when city council as a body has yet to even broach the topic of privatization in wastewater treatment?

You'll never take us alive, copper!!!
According to inside sources, Special Agent Dan Green of the EPA's Tampa Criminal Investigation division has been in and out of Venice lately. Green has reportedly been conducting an ongoing criminal investigation for over a year into the city's practices of disposing hazardous waste. Within the past month, Green has been reportedly visiting employees at their homes to finalize witness statements. When contacted last week, Green would neither confirm or deny that he is conducting an ongoing investigation into the city's pollution control division, citing agency rules that prohibit him from discussing any ongoing investigations.

Green has purportedly been collecting a large number of witness statements, photographs and city documents.

Hunt has reportedly been poo-pooing the EPA investigation as a collection of hearsay evidence that leads nowhere.

So who is this Dan Green and what could the EPA do anyway?

In 1999 Gary Berkovitz was sentenced to 13 years in a federal prison for illegal dumping of hazardous material in Tampa. Berkovitz, while operating a company called Bay Drum and Steel, was dumping toxic waste into sewers, storm drains, Tampa Bay and even a neighboring lot adjacent to his business. Berkovitz received the longest sentence ever given in a federal court for illegal dumping (source: EPA 1999 Accomplishments Report -- Adobe PDF file, requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader).

The lead investigator in the Bay Drum case? Dan Green.

More on point to Venice's situation: in January of this year, water treatment plant operator Danny Hill was sentenced to five months in prison to be followed by five months of house arrest. Hill's company, Danny Hill and Associates, managed 14 privatized water treatment plants in North Carolina. The EPA accused Hill of discharging wastewater in excess of the levels permitted in his discharge permit, of allowing untreated sewage to escape into receiving streams and of falsifying EPA documentation. Hill was indicted by a federal grand jury in June of 2002, and he subsequently entered a guilty plea (sources: Business and Legal Reports and EPA 2002 Accomplishments Report).

Hearsay is just a river in Egypt
Green, in the process of interviewing and re-interviewing witnesses here in Venice, has reportedly instructed the witnesses not to talk about specific incidents with anyone. While Venice Florida! dot com is unclear if such a gag order is enforceable without a corresponding order from a judge, it was decided to err on the side of caution. In order to protect potential witnesses from possible obstruction charges, they have not been asked about details of specific incidents.

That said, in the course of working his way through the wastewater employee roster, a lot more than just a few isolated incidents have reportedly been uncovered by Green. Discoveries by Green are reported to include a number of spills and dumps, both accidental and deliberate, possibly going back as far as ten years ago. Additionally, EPA required spill report documents are alleged to be falsified or non-existent. Then there are recurring allegations about a hostile work environment designed to keep workers from talking, a work environment that also endangered workers.

Some of this is the same ground that was covered in the city's mishandled investigation into charges of abuse aimed at four of the supervisors last year. Unreported spills and dumps, along with the falsification of documentation, are new areas of investigation, things that the city's inquiry barely hinted at.

The city's in-house investigation resulted in suspensions for supervisors Pat Wilson, John Saputo, Shane Saputo, and John Brennan. Wilson and the two Saputo brothers subsequently challenged the suspensions in court. Judge Becky Titus overruled the suspensions, ruling that the city did not follow due process in the handling of investigation and subsequent punishments. It is important to note that Titus never addressed the issue of whether or not the supervisors committed any of the acts that they were accused of - Titus never got that far. Titus ruled that the city had mishandled the investigation from the start and that any factual basis for the investigation was thus immaterial.

Also last year, supervisor John Saputo was criminally charged with sending a threat by e-mail to a co-worker over the city's e-mail system, a felony. He admitted guilt and was placed in the Florida Department of Corrections' pre-trial intervention program, a program for first-time offenders that is very similar to probation. He retained his job, job title, pay rate, and is still a supervisor over the same employee that he threatened.

Hunt and City Attorney Bob Anderson are set to meet with Green and a federal prosecutor later this month at the EPA's Tampa office.

The upside is that this gives Hunt the golden opportunity to enrage yet another Federal agency (by his own admission, Hunt is now persona non grata with the FAA). Hunt may not have to try as hard this time, the work may already be done. The city initially balked at turning over pollution control documents about a year ago, documents that should normally be turned over to the EPA upon request as a matter of routine. Green finally had to go get a subpoena to get the city to cooperate. It's doubtful that Green has forgotten the city's cooperative attitude.

Now you can begin to understand why Hunt is eager to sell off the waste treatment plant. He'd love to have the deal done by as early as a month ago.

Could Hunt be implicated?
The EPA investigation could very well reach as high as Hunt's office. Take, for instance, the massive deliberate spill of waste into storm drains during Tropical Storm Gabrielle in September of 2001, an incident that has yet to be fully disclosed to the public and one that has been described privately as a created crisis. Hunt would, by necessity, have to have known about what was going on. It would be hard to believe that the pollution control department would make such drastic decisions without going up the chain of command to the city manager's office.

If the EPA substantiates that there were criminal spills and if Hunt had firsthand knowledge -- uh-oh. Big uh-oh.  Perhaps not so coincidentally, Hunt is pushing for the city to provide criminal attorneys for the pollution control supervisors in advance of any possible action by the EPA, this according to Mayor Dean Calamaras.

In defense of the mayor, he is flying blind on part of the issue. Hunt is passing the EPA investigation off as a case made out of thin air, his official spin is that the EPA has a nothing case. The EPA isn't talking openly about any specific charges or incidents yet. So the mayor, council (and everyone else, for that matter) still have no clear idea of how much trouble the city might be in.

If Hunt is deliberately downplaying the potential legal ramifications of the EPA investigation, it wouldn't be the first time he engaged in such behavior.

Nearly two years ago, a kickback scheme that even Hunt acknowledged was illegal was uncovered in the city's computer department. While Hunt announced the indiscretions, he was less than truthful about the full extent of the scheme. Both Hunt and then-Emergency Services Director Joe Slapp managed to keep hidden most of the facts for nearly a year until Venice Florida! dot com reexamined the case. Miraculously, the case was never sent to the State Attorney's Office for review. The city's computer department head, Charles "Steve" Randall, was suspended without pay for ten days for an error in judgment. Randall was subsequently given a pay raise by Hunt to make up for the loss. Additionally, he was never required to pay back the money that he had illegally received.

So, does anyone want to buy a fully functioning water treatment plant? If so, inquire at city hall.

Note: the photo at the top of this page has been retouched to show the words "for sale;" actual unaltered image can be found here.

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.