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Permit Delays Dredge Up Talk Of Firing

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By CHRISTIAN M. WADE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 23, 2008

PORT RICHEY - The city's Port Authority board wants it; so do the mayor and several city council members. And a group of residents has been calling for it for months.

After wrangling for nearly a year over a replacement for LPA Group, the city's embattled dredging consultant, a showdown over whether to fire the company is looming.

A vote to replace the firm could come as early as Tuesday, when Port Authority members are expected to ask the council to consider hiring a new consultant.

For some, the move couldn't come soon enough.

"We've been asking them for months to hire a replacement," said Brian Roberts, who lives along one of the canals included in the project. "We completely support it."

The discontent is part of increasing frustration, expressed by city officials and by residents who would be affected by the project, over delays in obtaining the necessary permits.

Most of the blame has been directed at LPA Group.

In the past two years, the city has paid LPA more than $475,000 to get permits from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Despite that, the city hasn't received approval for any part of the dredging plan.

Port Authority member Mike Latini said he thinks LPA has mismanaged the project.

"I don't think they have the expertise to get this project done," he said.

He also wants the city to audit its payments to the firm.

"I think we need to follow the dollars," Latini said. "We need to know where it was spent."

An ad-hoc selection committee has chosen four consulting firms from a list of candidates. Two weeks ago, the council certified three of those companies to work for the city.

They are: PBS&J, which has more than 80 offices across the country; Fort Myers-based Banks Engineering; and Taylor Engineering, headquartered in Jacksonville.

Support From Council Members

Whether the council will vote again to replace LPA with one of the chosen trio remains to be seen, but there appears to be enough support among council members.

Mayor Richard Rober, as well as Councilman Mark Hashim, both support it.

"At this point, I would be inclined to vote for a change of consultant," Rober said.

Councilman Dale Massad said he isn't ready to show LPA the door, at least not yet.

He said the consulting firm is on the verge of getting one of three permit applications for the dredging, and replacing LPA would cause more delays.

"If that happens," Massad said, "then it may obviate the need to change firms."

That permit request is to dredge 26 canals in two parts: The first is five canals where the seagrass beds will be disturbed; the second is canals where seagrass is nonexistent.

It's one of three permits being reviewed by regulators for a proposal to dredge miles of silt-clogged canals and other waterways degraded by pollution and years of neglect.

Regulators Have Concerns

DEP officials have approved a six-month extension for a permit application to create a new channel to the Gulf of Mexico for boats to pass through seagrass beds between Brasher Park and the Pithlachascotee River, and to dredge a canal along Old Post Road.

All of the agencies involved in the permitting process - the DEP, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, National Marine Fisheries Service, Army Corps of Engineers and the federal Environmental Protection Agency - oppose that portion of the project.

State regulators have presented city officials with a laundry list of concerns about the third permit to dredge a waterway linking Lake Deedra to the river.

Overall, the project calls for dredging more than 400,000 cubic yards of mud and silt.

But the permitting process has dragged on for more than a decade as state regulators and Port Richey officials have wrangled over the environmental impact.

Dredging has become a key issue of the April 8 elections, when three incumbent council members face a bid from two challengers who are critical of the project's management.

Candidates Perry Bean, a former member of the Port Authority Committee, and Phil Abts have been vocal supporters of the move to replace LPA Group with a new consulting firm.

Reporter Christian M. Wade can be reached at (727) 815-1082 or cwade@tampatrib.com.

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