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Tons Of Debris Removed From 2 Pasco Sinkholes

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By DAVID SOMMER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 8, 2008

SHADY HILLS - People may not realize it, but what gets dumped into a hole near Crews Lake has the potential to poison a mermaid.

That is because the underground aquifer that feeds Weeki Wachee Springs, known as a "springshed," reaches south to cover a large swath of northern Pasco County, according to Chris Zajac, an environmental scientist with the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

Zajac just finished managing a 3-year project to clean up sinkholes between the Anclote River and Kings Bay in Citrus County.

The cleanup, which involved surveying 105 sinkholes, most filled with water, turned up almost 91 tons of refuse - and a car.

Most of that waste, about 86 tons, came from two Pasco County sinkholes, Zajac said.

"The worst sinkhole of all the sinkholes was in Pasco near Crews Lake," said Robyn Felix, a water district spokeswoman.

Located east of the Suncoast Parkway and north of the Crews Lake Park entrance, that sinkhole produced 83 tons of refuse, mostly tires, Felix said.

"It's been there a long time and it accumulated over a long time," Zajac said of the Crews Lake sinkhole, part of a chain of sinkholes known as Hernasco Sink.

There was so much junk in the hole that the water surface was not visible, Zajac said. In addition to tires, there was broken furniture, dirty mattresses, car parts and a lawnmower.

Fortunately, Zajac said, water district workers and commercial divers from a Pinellas County company did not find a lot of chemicals, such as paint and tar, as was originally feared.

Most of the junk "probably doesn't pose an immediate threat to water quality, but it doesn't belong in there," he said.

The second-worst sinkhole, containing about 3 tons of junk, was on the Pinellas County side of County Line Road. Known as Arch Sink, the hole yielded a small handgun among the discards.

That find prompted a call to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, and a deputy took the weapon, Zajac said.

"The officer had a look like we had just created a lot of paperwork for him," Zajac said.

Sheriff's spokesman Doug Tobin said such guns are held for a year and then sent to a scrap company in Sarasota. The agency recently destroyed 741 guns, many confiscated at crime scenes and no longer needed as evidence, he said.

The Hernando County Sheriff's Office was called after divers found the car - there was no body inside - in a sinkhole near U.S. 19.

District sinkhole sleuths were able to save most of the project's $300,000 budget for the cleanup.

After the first year, staff members decided it was not worth paying thousands for professional divers to survey submerged sinkholes that might not contain debris, Zajac said. Armed with an $800 underwater camera, water district workers paddled around in a small boat looking for junk before calling the divers.

The project cost less than $90,000, and some of the sinkholes were returned to their original pristine states.

"Some of them were very nice, with nice clear water," Zajac said. "Weekend swimming holes."

Reporter David Sommer can be reached at (727) 815-1087 or dsommer@tampatrib.com.

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