Bullet Pollution Threatens Water Quality In Florida

The cleanup of a lead-polluted property in Florida has stalled after years of political squabbling over how to fund an overhaul at the controversial site.

Decades of target practice at a gun club in St. Petersburg, FL, appear to have contaminated the soil with about 10,000 tons of spent lead shot, according to activists in the group Environmental Citizens.

“It's a popular recreational sport, but according to the state, the Skyway Trap and Skeet club is causing major environmental problems to the Sawgrass Lake Park,” WTSP reported. “Environmental problems” include a risk to local drinking water. “The water main pipe for the city is buried under lead-contaminated soil,” WTSP reported in a more recent article.

Regulators stepped in many years ago. “In 2000, the EPA ordered an emergency assessment of the area and found dangerous levels of lead and arsenic in the soil, surface water, and groundwater at the Sawgrass site. The EPA ordered a $23 million cleanup effort of the lake,” according to Environmental Citizens.

But now it appears the cleanup has run into some challenges. “City Council members have been asking about the contamination, but city staff -- including former Utilities Director Mike Connors -- kept telling the council the gun club where the water main is buried has been cleaned up,” the report said.

The thing is, that’s not exactly true. “The gun club that agreed to clean up the polluted site, which is adjacent to Sawgrass Lake, never lived up to its agreement to clean up its property. Part of that agreement had taxpayers footing a $25 million cleanup to remove almost a million pounds of lead from the lake,” WTSP reported.

The city has additional action planned for the coming months. “The first step in clearing up the issue comes in two weeks when members of the South West Florida Water Management District, which is suing the gun club, and members of the Department of Environmental Protection appear before the council and to explain what is being done to force the gun club to comply with the agreement it signed in 2004,” WTSP reported.

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