Sometimes we ain’t got the sense God gave a goose.
Back in November, Marino Construction was digging dirt at Suntex Marinas’ Garrison Bight redevelopment location and, oops, one of those shovels, so to speak, uncovered a 1991 fuel spill that had been buried and monitored until 2015 as a hazardous waste site. That should have triggered some common sense. Stop digging. Might be a problem.
Instead, it appears to have gone like this: If we pretend nothing happened, no one will notice. Let’s just dig. It’s an old spill. Probably safe.
So they kept digging — gotta stay on mission to make money — until folks in the Meadows neighborhood adjacent to the 711 Eisenhower location detected a stink and made one of their own. It took a lot of complaints, but eventually Key West City Manager Brian Barroso had Chief Building Officer Ron Wampler issue a stop-work order on Feb. 25.
The order requires Marino/Suntex to conduct a state-regulated site assessment to determine the extent of contamination and begin remediation if needed. State rules require an assessment to begin within 60 days of discovery and a report to be submitted within 270 days. We likely won’t see that until at least August.
In the four months since the exhumation, neighbors complained to, among others, their city commissioner, Monica Haskell, the state Department of Environmental Protection and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. According to local reporting, the DEP has taken soil samples and results are pending.
Ranger Ed and I live in the Meadows less than four blocks from the construction site. The first few times I smelled dead dinosaurs I dismissed it as just another Key West scent. Between petroleum-fueled vehicles and airplanes, we’re nose-blind to the smell.
These petroleum whiffs were different. More of them. More intense. Lingering much longer. And definitely following the wind direction straight into my house. Three of us neighbors had a block-sniffing party to suss out where the smell originated. Not our propane tanks. Not the cars along the block. Not an idling semi or delivery van on the next block. The wind would shift and, poof, no more smell.
Meadows fuel spill | City slow to take action
I was among those who raised concerns with Commissioner Haskell, who has been instrumental in ensuring the city took action. My email to her read in part: “For those of us with upper-respiratory challenges, it’s no fun to walk outside and struggle to breathe. For now I’m not blaming my flareups solely on the fumes, but it’s hard to get around the fact that I’ll be fine until the wind shifts and I get a big whiff of petroleum, followed by an acute asthma reaction. Add to those immediate respiratory effects, the potentially contaminated soil leaching into the nearby waters and open drains poses risks to our water supply and nearshore waters.”
Petroleum mixed with dirt and water is bad news for people and the environment. Could range from “safe for humans” stink or all-out “you die.” That’s why those environmental tests — and the laws that enforce them — are so crucial. The 35-year-old hazardous waste site at Garrison Bight, remediated though it was (buried, but not cleaned up), was safe only so long as it remained buried. And now it’s not.
The public didn’t know much about environmental contamination until the 1970s. In December 1980 the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund, was created to clean up the worst contaminated sites. While there are no Superfund sites in Monroe County, the U.S. Coast Guard Station at the Palm Avenue Causeway remains on the federal list of hazardous sites. Its status is No Further Remedial Action Planned.
Now Garrison Bight is a red-light reminder that much of Key West is built on top of some variation of a hazardous site. For generations we’ve dumped, drowned and buried stuff, a disposal practice raised to an art form by the U.S. military as it dredged, filled and built and as it erected fuel storage tanks for ships, submarines and aircraft.
In 1989 a spill at NAS Key West involved a 700-gallon leak of JP-5 fuel. During subsequent investigations of waterfront/industrial parcels, soil was found with petroleum constituents and metals above industrial or recreational cleanup levels, leading to excavation of contaminated soil. The July 17, 2013 meeting minutes of the NAS Key West Restoration Advisory Board make clear the island’s vulnerability as it explored development of the Truman Waterfront.
It’s estimated that approximately 2,100 cubic yards of contaminated soil (including petroleum constituents and PCBs) were removed to meet recreational‑ and residential-use criteria at the waterfront. If that number doesn’t resonate, how about this: A standard dump truck holds 10-16 cubic yards. To remove 2,100, you’d need up to 210 trucks.
And should someone be concerned for the well-heeled folks on Tank Island, aka Sunset Key, not to worry. The Navy built two 40-foot-tall, 80-foot-diameter fuel storage tanks on the island back in the 1960s but never filled them. The Navy sold the island to developers in 1986 and demolished the towers in 1988. The big bucks moved in in 1994.
That’s how we do it in Key West. A little spill here; oops, a big one there. Wash it away, throw some dirt on top. Rinse. Repeat.
Common sense says that could be a problem as we rebuild infrastructure, whether it’s roads and bridges, water mains or a marina. We’re not going to stop, so we need to ensure the ways we go about it protect our fragile ecosystem.
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