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Developer taps into ex-Corps leader

When Col. Robert Carpenter retires next week after being commander of the Jacksonville corps office, he will become president of a company that might turn an old mine into a resort.

By DAN DEWITT
Published July 23, 2006

HUDSON - The Sun West Mine, viewed from Old Dixie Highway in northwestern Pasco County, looks almost as flat and wet as the Gulf.

In the foreground are mining pits filled with blue water. Beyond them is a plain of black-green marsh grass.

The owner of the mine, Grubbs Emergency Services LLC of Brooksville, plans to develop the property, possibly with a resort and marina that will use a nearby canal to access the Gulf. If the company wants to build on wetlands or widen the canal, they will have a powerful ally: Col. Robert Carpenter of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Carpenter, commander of the corps office in Jacksonville, will become president of Grubbs after his retirement from the corps this week. The corps office, under Carpenter and previous commanders, has been criticized for approving virtually every application from Florida developers to build on wetlands.

His hiring is another example of a damaging pattern common throughout the state, said Lesley Blackner, an environmental lawyer from Palm Beach who has sued the corps several times. Too often, regulatory officials go to work for developers, using their contacts and knowledge of their old agency's rules to help their new employers wipe out natural areas.

"You've heard of the military-industrial complex? In Florida, we have the developer-regulatory complex," Blackner said.

But a Grubbs spokeswoman said Carpenter's background in mobilizing workers and equipment make him a natural to take over the company, which has contracts with local governments throughout the Southeast to clean up debris after hurricanes and other natural disasters.

"Carpenter was hired because he was the corps' point guy on hurricanes for several years, and especially in the exciting years we've had recently," said Honey Rand, a Tampa public relations consultant hired by Grubbs.

She said there was nothing improper about the move for Carpenter, who has been in his current position since 2003 and in the military for 25 years. Through a corps spokeswoman, he declined to comment for this story.

"It's not indentured servitude, it's government service," Rand said. "You have to work in the field that you know."

Grubbs' interest in the mine dates back to 1999, when John G. "Gary" Grubbs, then the owner of a Brooksville road-construction business, agreed to buy it from Bill Hunt, who owns large tracts of property in coastal Pasco.

Hunt tried to void the sale after Gary Grubbs filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2003, saying Grubbs owed him $20-million of the $25-million purchase price. The two parties later reached a settlement calling for Grubbs to pay off a lien Hunt held on the property, according to records in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Tampa.

One of Grubbs' companies, Sun West Acquisitions, is now owned by Grubbs Emergency Services, Rand said. Gary Grubbs only advises the companies and does not own them, she said, an arrangement his competitors have said was intended to insulate the companies from Gary Grubbs' debts after he filed for bankruptcy protection.

Concern that the bankruptcy court would rule in Sun West's favor on another ownership dispute led Pasco County to relinquish its claim on 915 acres of the mine, the portion west of Old Dixie with the deep, water-filled pits.

A previous owner of the mine had agreed to hand the property over to the county once all the rock had been extracted, said County Attorney Robert Sumner.

In May, the Pasco County Commission voted to drop the right to take over the mine in exchange for $3-million and a nearby 21-acre parcel that will become part of a planned county park.

Mac Davis, an environmental activist from nearby Aripeka, said he is mystified the county would give up its rights to hundreds of acres of coastal marsh.

"The more people try to explain it to me, the less I understand it," he said.

The county had little choice, Sumner said, because the original agreement was vague and would have allowed Sun West to retain the property indefinitely, just by saying it planned to continue mining the land.

"The agreement wasn't very well-written," Sumner said.

Also, he said, most of the property will remain undeveloped because of the extensive wetlands.

Not necessarily, said Rand. Sun West is currently surveying the land to establish wetland lines and has not ruled out developing any part of it.

Under state rules, the project will almost certainly face the greater scrutiny as a Development of Regional Impact because it will have 2,000 or more residential units and possibly a marina, Sumner said.

No matter what form the development takes, Grubbs does not expect special treatment because of Carpenter's hiring, Rand said.

"To suggest that he can somehow move the wetlands line, that's ludicrous," she said.

But Sumner said that if Grubbs builds a marina it will need to widen the canal, the permitting of which usually takes years. Having Carpenter on board could speed up that process, said Sumner, who added that the county plans to build a boat ramp at its newly acquired park site and also would like to see the channel widened.

Carpenter also could help the firm receive a permit to build on wetlands, said Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C. Because Carpenter knows the people at the corps and its rules, Ruch said, "if there's a bureaucratic road block, he'll know how to navigate around it."

"The tradition of the corps is that their revolving door works better than their levies," he said.

According to a 2005 St. Petersburg Times story, the state had lost 84,000 acres of wetlands to development in the previous 15 years. Between 1999 and 2003, the story said, the corps approved about 12,000 permits in Florida and rejected one.

Carpenter changed that trend somewhat, especially in 2005, when the corps denied six permits. And in a letter to the Times, he said he had followed the corps rules in trying to balance environmental concerns with developers' rights.

"We always adhere to applicable laws as we implement our programs, including our wetland permitting program," he wrote.

Staff Writers Chuin-Wei Yap and Craig Pittman contributed to this report. Dan DeWitt can be reached at dewitt@sptimes.com or (352)754-6116.

[Last modified July 22, 2006, 20:13:15]