Though Gov. Jeb Bush and state DEP Secretary David Struhs claim to care, they have done little to protect three of the state's rivers - Ichetucknee, Santa Fe and Suwannee.

The Suwannee American Cement plant and limestone mine should be an embarrassment to Gov. Jeb Bush's administration. The plant and mine threaten to pollute three of the state's most significant rivers: Ichetucknee, Santa Fe and Suwannee. The governor himself took a canoe trip on the Ichetucknee in 1999 and vowed to protect it. But while Bush and state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David Struhs have made a show of policing the project, they have actually let the threat grow.

DEP justified striking a private deal with Suwannee American by saying the law did not allow the state to use a company's past record in considering the permit. The parent company, Anderson Columbia, has a history of violations, fines and questionable political dealings.

So Suwannee American was allowed to mine limestone and build a cement plant that burns coal and tires for power, all within three miles of Ichetucknee State Park. To mitigate the damage, the state required strict pollution controls and agreed to buy another of the company's limerock mines at the Ichetucknee headwaters for $23-million. Struhs was so proud of the agreement that he proclaimed it "the most remarkable positive results for Florida's environment."

According to a recent story by Times staff writer Julie Hauserman, the results have been remarkable all right, but hardly positive.

Remember the mine the state bought with taxpayer dollars to reduce the risk to the Ichetucknee? The purchase looks more like a ruse now, because DEP has quietly announced its intent to issue Suwannee American a permit to expand the new mine from 100 acres to 800 acres and to operate it for 100 years. That would make the mine 2 1/2 times larger than the one the state bought to protect the river.

Struhs admits the mine will affect the flow of groundwater. And that groundwater ends up in the Santa Fe and Suwannee, both ranked as Outstanding Florida Waters.

So will that groundwater be contaminated? "That depends on how you define contamination," Struhs told Hauserman.

After the Times began asking questions about the new mine permit, Struhs put a new restriction on the cement plant, delaying its opening for two years. When the plant does fire up with coal and tires, however, it will produce 3,100 tons of pollutants a year, including 97 pounds of mercury, which environmentalists worry would contaminate fish in the three nearby rivers.

Maybe the public will have forgotten the whole mess by then, but it's not likely, because Suwannee American and its parent company can't stay out of trouble. Suwannee American violated its permit for a stormwater pond by digging it too deep, creating sinkholes and threatening to pollute groundwater. In February, the company was fined $4,000 when antipollution equipment at the site blew away. In March, the company was fined $16,000 for having air quality monitors that had been inoperable for months. Such paltry fines don't seem to faze Anderson Columbia, which has been fined twice this year for pollution at road construction sites.

So what have the governor and Struhs done about the weak law that tied their hands when dealing with such companies? While Struhs did lobby the Legislature to make a permit seeker's past environmental record relevant, Bush did not push for the new law. Consequently, nothing happened.

As a result, state officials seem unable to protect three of Florida's most beautiful rivers. Do Gov. Bush and DEP Secretary Struhs care? They say they do, but their actions say otherwise.

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