By Linda Dean Cooper

Most of us know that limerock is used throughout the county to maintain most of Levy’s unpaved roads.  Our source of limerock is about to be nonexistent or we pay more to outsource by paying market price due to County Coordinator Wilbur Dean and county engineer Andrew Carswell’s inability to do their jobs properly.

Gulf Hammock is the location of the county’s limerock pit where the blasting and digging for limerock take place.  That site has been shut down by the State since February 13, 2023. The only activity allowed was rock crushing and stockpiling of limerock.

DEP’s letter to the county explains their concerns during its site inspection in February 2023, “The operator has recently purchased the land for their expansion modification. The applicant has been instructed to close operations until a new permit can be issued or until an exemption is found that would allow continuance of operations. The applicant has agreed to cease operations at this time.”

The DEP field inspection report at the time of inspection noted “Applicant recently purchased the land for their expansion mode. The applicant has been instructed to close operations until a new permit can be issued or an exception is found that would allow continuance of operation. Applicant has agreed. The applicant has been notified that many areas of the perimeter berm needs to be fixed or reconstructed once operations are allowed to resume.”

Not only did the rock pit fail its inspection but the county was notified on November 9, 2023, they had not sent in the required annual reports for 2019-2022.  

On March 1, 2024, I requested public information from Wilbur Dean concerning the rock pit’s closure.   One of the questions I asked was “Is the rock pit closed?”.  I had to ask twice, supposedly due to the oversight of the information request by HR Director Jacqueline Martin who was responding to my questions. The reply, in my opinion, is a play on words at best.  She said, “The rock pit is not closed.  The County is not digging or blasting.  They are crushing rock and stockpiling.” I have it on good authority that there has been no rock crushing or stockpiling in six months.  If so, where are the five employees who are dedicated to digging, blasting, and crushing rock?  I am not going to ask, why bother, I won’t get a straight answer.

Fast forward to March 5, 2024, BoCC agenda item number 14.  The request for the BoCC to approve ECS Florida, LLC for preliminary Threatened & Endangered Species Assessment, Preliminary Wetlands Determination, and Environment Permitting Service for the Gulf Hammock Pit for $58,500. It was explained that the scope of work was not in the current engineer’s area of expertise. My question was not only why the the county paid the the hourly rate for a county engineer at $51.05 per hour but why did he not know this needed to be outsourced as soon as the DEP indicated why the permit was denied.  Same for the county coordinator, Wilbur Dean not following up on the permit denial.  April 11, 2024, is the deadline for DEP to continue processing the county’s application unless a written request for additional time to provide the requested information. We will see if the county meets the April 11 deadline or needs another extension.

Commissioner John Meeks wanted to blame the DEP for such a slow response to the county.  During my comments I said  it was not true, I have the documents in my hand stating otherwise. My experience with DEP has been positive. Whenever I have called a human answers the phone and emails are promptly responded to on the same day.  If the county cannot keep it’s house in order how can they dictate to others wanting to operate sand or rock pits?  Why is the BoCC allowing such mismanagement of our resources and tax dollars?

Commissioner Rock Meeks has mentioned his concern for the Gulf Hammock Rock pit issues on numerous occasions, but he was ignored as well.

One last comment, how does the BoCC allow this completely blatant incompetence in our county government?  Not only are employees subjected to this incapable, lazy, bad management but so are the taxpayers of Levy County. 

This tax-and-spend mentality with no productive or positive results has got to end!

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Posted March 8, 2024 from BoCC meeting March 5, 2024