By DARA KAM
Sun Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- An ongoing struggle between environmental
groups and state officials over a land purchase hatched as part of a plan
to build a cement plant near Ichetucknee State Park was the focus of
debate Wednesday as aides to Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet met to
decide whether or not to approve the deal.
In the 4-hour, sometimes testy exchange, Cabinet aides listened as
both sides made impassioned pleas about the future of the Ichetucknee
River and surrounding area. The Cabinet will vote on the issue
Tuesday.
Under discussion was a state proposal to pay a subsidiary of the
Anderson Columbia Co. Inc. up to $27 million for about 355 acres
near Lake City. The land, some of which is an active limerock mine
owned by Anderson Mining, is considered by some environmental
experts to house a conduit that leads from nearby springs to the
headwaters of the Ichetucknee River.
''This acquisition will stop the risk of a mining operation that could
continue for another 50 years,'' said Jim Stevenson, a Department of
Environmental Protection administrator. Stevenson was also the
founder of the Ichetucknee Springs Water Quality Working Group.
Stevenson and others fear that continued mining in the region would
cause fractures to underground cave domes and could possibly lead to
the release of pollutants into the Ichetucknee.
The land purchase being considered was negotiated as part of a
settlement over a dispute about the Suwannee American cement plant,
owned by members of the Anderson family. Dave Struhs, secretary of
DEP, originally denied the cement plant permit but later granted the
permit as part of the larger deal to acquire the mine.
Anderson Columbia has also agreed to donate a Santa Rosa County
site known as the Bagdad property as restitution for environmental
violations at that site and to establish a $1 million endowment for the
protection of the Ichetucknee, Suwannee and Santa Fe rivers.
Struhs told the panel that although Anderson Columbia had ''flagrantly
ignored or violated'' environmental standards in the past, he viewed the
deal as an indication that the company was serious about changing.
''We have a company that has agreed in very specific ways to change
the way they run their business,'' said Struhs, referring to new
monitoring technologies to be employed on the cement plant. ''The best
we could have won in court would have been in a delay. What we've
achieved is far better than a delay.''
Attorney Jim Eaton, who represents Anderson Columbia, said the
company wanted the state to decide whether or not they wanted to buy
the land by Jan. 31.
''We'd be more than happy to keep it,'' he said, adding that the mining
resource would only become ''more valuable as time goes on.''
But opponents of the cement plant and others were not as quick to
agree that the company had changed.
''They're trying to put us under pressure,'' said Virginia Seacrist. ''It's
like they are used-car salesmen.''
Seacrist, who has been fighting the plant since 1997, told the panel that
further study was needed before the state rushed into an agreement to
buy the mine.
David Bruderly, an engineering consultant from Gainesville, also
questioned the necessity of the hasty purchase, which first came to the
table last November.
''Why are they desperate to push this process as quickly as they can?''
Bruderly asked. ''Because the more the public finds out about what
they're trying to do the more it will weaken their support. A milking
barn would get more review than a cement plant.''