News-Press.com

Wastewater plants' files to go online

Move expected to improve public access

BY Pedro Morales
pmorales@news-press.com

April 12, 2008

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080412/NEWS0105/804120424/1004

In 2002 a privately-owned wastewater plant spilled nearly a million gallons of raw and partially-treated sewage into a creek that flowed into Estero Bay.

But few of the 900-odd homes in the Estero community were aware of it.

Most Floridians are blind to the pollution happening next door, owing to the Department of Environmental Protection's record-keeping system.

That is changing as the state agency, which relies almost entirely on paper records, begins a project to transfer its files to an electronic system that will be accessible via the Web.

"If they weren't immediate to the plant, they didn't see the spills," said Jack Schlegel, 70, explaining why some residents in Fountain Lakes knew nothing about the events.

"We started getting little notes in the mailboxes asking if we heard anything or smelled anything, and that's how we got the ball rolling," said Schlegel, who organized meetings to inform neighbors after spending hours sifting through paper records.

Wastewater information is crucial in Lee County, where, according to a The News-Press investigation, at least a quarter of the wastewater plants have had pollution problems in the past five years.

Environmentalists say wastewater plants, many of which are old and falling apart, are polluting tributaries that lead to the Gulf. Accessible records will improve the public's role as watchdogs.

"That's the key to keeping government open," said Robert Anderson, a Lehigh Acres resident and former board member of Lehigh Acres' wastewater plant. "If you can't get access to certain files, it's not an open government anymore."

The DEP is taking steps to make records and permits easier to view.

In March it announced a New Permitting Notification System that can alert residents when an environmental permit application is received. Its Waste Division is finishing its move from paper to electronic record-keeping, a decade-long transfer that makes the records available online to the public.

The wastewater files - stored in dark storage rooms in Fort Myers - are next, but there is no timetable for when the transfer will be complete. The project is expected to take years and the price tag of the conversion and the costs savings have not been tabulated.

"The process of going through old records is long and tedious but having a new system is especially good for public records request," said Elijah Fleishauer, spokesman for the DEP south district, which includes Southwest Florida.

For an agency with frequent turnover of wastewater inspectors, electronic files may lead to a more efficient workforce that spends less time perusing papers and more time analyzing important data.

"Could it relate to unearthing more things they otherwise would've missed by not filing or misfiling?" Fleishauer said. "We'll have to wait and see if it relates to better enforcement."