A cement plant near a state park seems to put Gov. Jeb Bush in a vulnerable spot. But Bill McBride, whose former law firm was involved, hasn't pressed the issue.

[Times photo: Lara Cerri]
The new cement plant would release hundreds of tons of pollutants -- mercury, carbon monoxide and fine particulates, among others -- that local residents fear will settle into the springs.

By JULIE HAUSERMAN and CRAIG PITTMAN
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 14, 2002

ICHETUCKNEE SPRINGS -- As Gov. Jeb Bush and challenger Bill McBride spar over protecting Florida's environment, on the campaign trail they steer clear of one touchy subject.

Neither candidate mentions the cement plant under construction on State Road 27 in Suwannee County, a gray behemoth rising above the trees 3 miles from the popular Ichetucknee Springs State Park.

The cement plant represents perhaps Bush's most controversial environmental decision during his first term. But McBride hasn't made it an issue in the governor's race. The law firm he led for a decade, Holland & Knight, represented the cement plant's owners.

Despite being fined for a series of environmental violations during construction, the cement plant's owners plan to fire it up about a month after the Nov. 5 election.

How the plant came to be built despite strong opposition from environmental advocates and local residents, its location near one of the state's most popular natural features and the checkered past of its developer offers a window into Bush's efforts to balance environmental protection with the interests of influential businesses.

Bush said last week the agreement that allowed the cement plant to be built protects the Ichetucknee. But the Republican's critics assert that the cement plant reflects the governor's willingness to resolve environmental issues through negotiation even if the outcome is mixed, rather than take a strong stand that risks no return.

The cement plant controversy also illustrates the unease many environmentalists have about McBride, who managed a law firm that often pushed to ease environmental rules and represented some of the state's biggest polluters. Yet several influential environmental groups endorsed McBride instead of Bush, arguing that Bush's rhetoric has not matched his decisions.

As evidence, they cite the cement plant.

* * *

Bush's role in the cement plant controversy began in June 1999, about five months into his first term. He took a well-publicized canoe trip down the Ichetucknee River with his newly appointed environmental chief, David Struhs.

The rippling water was as clear and clean as the air above it. Bush and Struhs stopped about halfway along the route so Bush could make a speech.

The governor called the Ichetucknee spectacular. He said the people he passed as he paddled down the river urged him to block the plant, which they feared would pollute the air and water.

Nine days later the Bush administration announced it would not issue an an air quality permit for the plant. It relied on an obscure state rule that required a company to offer "reasonable assurance" it would not pollute. Anderson Columbia, the highway contractor whose affiliate proposed the project, has a history of environmental violations.

"This decision should place the regulated community on notice -- compliance counts," Struhs said on the day the plant was effectively blocked. "Permits will not be approved based on blueprints and plans alone."

Anderson Columbia responded by filing a lawsuit against the state. Negotiations prompted by that lawsuit ultimately led to the agreement that allowed for the plant to be built. And now Anderson Columbia is embarking on even more ambitious plans in the same area.

Five months ago, the Bush administration allowed a nearby limerock mine owned by Anderson Columbia to expand to 800 acres over the next century.

The man who rented Bush a canoe to paddle down the Ichetucknee feels betrayed.

"We were sold out by Jeb," said Vernis Wray, 58, owner of the Ichetucknee Family Campground.

Wray said he and his neighbors are bitter about what they view as a broken promise. He said he and his neighbors plan to vote for McBride, even though his law firm represented Anderson Columbia.

"I don't care if Donald Duck was running for governor against Jeb Bush," said Wray. "That man lied to me, to my face."

Wray said the local joke is that Bush flip-flopped on the Ichetucknee because he didn't canoe the whole river. He bailed out halfway.

* * *

On the campaign trail, Bush touts the $100-million annual state contribution for Everglades restoration. The money came with strings attached; legislators added to the bill a provision that limits rights to challenge development to residents who live nearby. Bush signed the bill into law despite the objections of more than 100 civic and environmental groups and Attorney General Bob Butterworth.

Bush also boasts about the deal he negotiated with the federal government to block offshore drilling close to the state's beaches. But the compromise allows oil companies to sink wells in the eastern Gulf of Mexico for the first time. Instead of being 213 miles from Pinellas County beaches, the new wells will be 285 miles away.

But McBride's positions also make some environmentalists uneasy.

The Democrat criticizes Bush for signing the citizen standing provision, even though it was crafted with the help of one of McBride's law partners.

When questions about the environment came up in the first televised debate, McBride floundered. The Florida Republican Party gleefully sent out a news release with a verbatim transcript of his tongue-tied response.

Only last week did McBride begin to focus on environmental issues in interviews and a position paper. At a news conference Saturday, McBride said he would work to overturn the new law that limits rights to challenge development if he is elected. The Democrat also called for more regulations for managing water and growth.

Prodded in an earlier interview to discuss the cement plant, McBride at first declined because of his firm's involvement.

He finally said he would not have allowed the plant to be built.

"If I were governor of the state of Florida ... I would not have made that decision," he said.

State officials say Bush had no other option.

* * *

Every year, 200,000 people visit Ichetucknee Springs State Park. They spend more than $1-million on everything from food to canoes while enjoying what state officials call "the most pristine spring and river system in Florida."

Linda Soride, 54, grew up near the Ichetucknee. She and her brothers opened the first inner tube rental business for Ichetucknee visitors in 1971.

Thirty years later she and her fiance, Paul Logan, are still renting tubes there. But Logan predicts the cement plant will ruin the river in five years.

The couple plan to vote against Bush because they believe he gave in to a politically powerful polluter. In 1998, when Bush was elected governor, Anderson Columbia donated $80,000 to the state GOP and chairman Joe Anderson III gave $58,0000.

"I want somebody that's going to be for the country, to keep it clean and do what's right," Soride said. If the cement plant fouls the river "it would ruin my business and my home."

The plant would burn coal and old tires day and night to produce 1-million tons of cement a year. The factory would release hundreds of tons of pollutants -- mercury, carbon monoxide and fine particulates, among others -- that local residents fear will settle into the springs and spoil its well-known purity.

They are not alone.

In 1998 the then-boss of the state's parks, Fran Mainella, said the plant threatened the air and water of the entire region.

"Because of prevailing winds in the summer, we expect the smokestack discharges from the plant may be noticeable in the park, and we are concerned for the recreating public as well as about long-term environmental damage," she warned.

Local officials approved the plant anyway, swayed by the prospect of 80 new jobs. At first, officials with the state Department of Environmental Protection said they would approve it, too.

Then came Bush's canoe trip and the announcement from DEP's Struhs that the state would block the plant because Anderson Columbia had a poor record of complying with environmental laws.

No one had ever been denied a permit on those grounds. The company sued.

Soon the two sides were quietly negotiating.

The chief negotiator for Anderson Columbia was Larry Sellers, one of McBride's law partners. McBride said he knew nothing of Sellers' work until he ran for governor. Sellers had no comment.

When word leaked out, the governor said he was weary of the fight.

"I'd rather settle it," Bush said in November 1999. "I have lost my appetite for lawsuits after being sued so much as governor."

* * *

Several Florida politicians have wound up in legal hot water because of their ties to Anderson Columbia.

Twenty years ago, three Hillsborough County commissioners took bribes from the paving company. In the 1990s two Democratic lawmakers, former House Speaker Bolley "Bo" Johnson and former Lake City Rep. Randy Mackey, went to federal prison for tax fraud after they concealed thousands of dollars of payments from Anderson Columbia.

In the cement plant negotiations, the company had some important help from Steve MacNamara, a top aide to then-House Speaker John Thrasher. DEP staffers said they thought MacNamara was representing Thrasher, not Anderson Columbia. The state Ethics Commission found probable cause that MacNamara violated ethics laws, but he is appealing.

Bush administration officials trumpeted the deal as the best possible settlement. Struhs said it "does more to protect Florida's environment than we ever would have won in court."

The company admitted publicly that it was guilty of past wrongdoing. It also agreed to put $1-million into a river-protection trust, donate land to the public, sell a mine to the state and train its employees to protect the environment.

"We have made some mistakes in the past that will be unacceptable as we move forward," Anderson Columbia president Joe Anderson III said. "From now on, every employee -- from the boardroom to the break room -- will know that environmental protection is part of our job, not an interruption of it."

Environmental activists were outraged by the deal. Protesters chained themselves together outside the governor's office. Environmental groups and local residents attempted a legal challenge, with Butterworth's help. They lost to McBride's partner.

John Webb, who rents canoes on the Suwannee River, says this shows powerful industries always get their way: "I think they can do pretty much what they want. I don't know what you're going to do about it."

Struhs says he tried.

For two years he asked the Legislature to give DEP the clear authority to turn down a permit if the applicant has a bad record. The Legislature did nothing. Bush's critics say that's because he didn't push for it the way he did other priorities, such as Everglades restoration.

Struhs calls the bill's failure "my biggest frustration." If Bush is re-elected, he said, "we're going to come back next spring and make it our top priority."

* * *

Alongside State Road 27, a 12-mile-long bicycle path connects the springs by the Suwannee River with Ichetucknee Springs State Park. State officials boast that the trail offers "beautiful views of Old Florida."

When the plant began construction, trees along the trail were cut to make way for power lines. Although the trees are slated to be replanted, soon bicyclists will have trains and trucks running by them, carrying materials to the plant.

"It's so ugly that people get discouraged. They don't like to ride it at all," said Lys Burden, 55, who volunteers with the Suwannee Bicycle Association.

The path's alteration is just one of the consequences that continue to ripple from Bush's Ichetucknee decision-making.

A key part of the deal called for Anderson Columbia to sell the state a limerock mine that threatened the Ichetucknee's headwaters. Taxpayers ended up paying $23-million for it, and they will have to pay more than $1-million more to clean it up, too.

Meanwhile, the company will be expanding another mine, right next to the cement plant, to be twice as large as the one it sold the state. Five months ago, the DEP quietly approved it, even though local residents' fear it will threaten the Ichetucknee, Santa Fe and Suwannee rivers.

Despite chairman Anderson's vow that his company would mend its ways, DEP has accused Anderson Columbia of new violations. For example, the company promised to install air pollution monitors before the cement plant started. But DEP found they hadn't worked in months and fined the company $15,000.

After the St. Petersburg Times began asking about the mine expansion, Struhs said he and Bush had decided that because of the new violations the state would not allow the cement plant to begin operating until 2004.

Company officials said last week that they have worked out the problem and expect no delay.

In an e-mail last week, Bush defended his record on the cement plant. Because of the deal, he said, "Ichetucknee Springs are substantially better protected than four years ago."

Bush avoided a replay of his Ichetucknee trip.

"I understand he has been canoeing," Struhs said, "but he didn't invite me along."

-- Staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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