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Group fighting for area's health

South Brooksville residents cite a lack of effort to protect their community from hazards of contaminated sites such as the former public works compound.

By DUANE BOURNE
Published June 27, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - In 2001, the state Department of Environmental Protection discovered several problems linked to the old county public works compound on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Two highly toxic petroleum byproducts, benzene and toluene, were found in the soil and groundwater under the Department of Public Works facility; they came from an area where fuel was stored and dispensed. There also was contamination in a shed where paint and solvents were stored.

The county moved into a new compound two years later. In the meantime, environmental officials said the contaminants were contained in a pocket of water below the clay surface and posed no threat to anyone's water supply. The risk to residents in area was minimal but needed to be monitored, officials said.

But, resident Richard Howell said, the health and environmental problems associated with the old DPW site and other places in the black community of south Brooksville have not been addressed. Nothing has been done to remedy residents' long-term exposure to contaminants, Howell said. It solidifies the belief of Howell and others that officials close to the situation do not care about what could be slowly killing people in this neighborhood.

"The county was told they were wrong years ago but refused to do anything until they moved out," Howell said.

Howell is part of a small crop of concerned residents who have banded together as the Mitchell Heights Health Awareness and Restoration Board. They are trying to hold county and state environmental officials accountable for pollutants that they say have plagued the community for more than 40 years.

Geographically, Mitchell Heights encompasses an area south of Dr. Martin King Jr. Boulevard and west of Main Street, which used to be called Mitchell Road through the neighborhood.

The loosely knit group has obtained petitions from residents to draw attention to the situation and last month held a workshop, appealing to officials to take a closer look. But their work has been an uphill fight.

County public works director Charles Mixson said the contamination has been contained in one area of the 217,800-square-foot property.

Mixson further explained that the county has spent $500,000 to clean up the site to meet state guidelines. The cleanup should be completed within the next year, he said.

"We are doing what the state and experts say," he said. "It is a fairly big problem, but it is not like we are ignoring it."

Don't tell that to Howell, who said the positive assessment of the DPW site, which is slated to become a park someday, depends on who you talk to and where they live.

Howell's efforts began in the early 1990s when he started fielding complaints from residents along A Street about water runoff that sent gasoline and oil into people's yards, sometimes making them sick.

In 1991, Howell said, a manager at the public works compound resigned because he refused to be responsible for hazardous chemicals that were seeping into the ground. The man told Howell that if he lived in the neighborhood, he would not accept what was going on.

Howell did not.

In 2000, after inquiring about what could be done and writing to the Department of Environmental Protection, Howell learned what was in the ground and got the community's blessing to put pressure on officials. Soon, more people, including Paul Boston, joined the cause, and the board coined its name.

"Normal people cannot live in this type of environment for long periods of time," Boston wrote in the May community newsletter, called Jauntily Uniting Society Through Understanding, or JUSTUS.

The contamination is not limited to Mitchell Heights, Howell said. He said DEP has identified several other sites worse than the DPW site. A DEP spokeswoman did not return a call from the Times late last week.

"There's one on Smith Street," Howell said, "and three on Brooksville Avenue within a 100-foot radius of each other."

Earlier this month, at a meeting attended by figures such as Mike Frazier, pastor of Landmark Baptist Church, and Hernando County Emergency Management director Thomas Leto, Howell highlighted the cause of his concern: county health data showing that the death rate for black people outpaced that of white people between 2001 and 2003.

The data showed that cancer was the leading cause of death for black people during that period, and Howell said he knows several people in the Mitchell Heights neighborhood who died of cancer.

"It is my belief that this is where the ailments come from," he said of the environmental problems.

It's that belief that affirms the group's goals.

The awareness and restoration board wants residents living in the vicinity of the DPW site to be tested to determine what effects some of the contaminants might be having on them.

Howell said he wants to keep the pressure on officials to do something, even suggesting that restitution be paid to residents and that those in the area be relocated.

One of his biggest concerns, though, is that those who can do something aren't listening.

"They don't care," he said.

--Duane Bourne can be reached at 352 754-6114 or dbourne@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 27, 2005, 01:05:15]