Costs rising to repair Plant City damage related to freeze

The expected cost to taxpayers for damage from 11 nights of relentless pumping by berry farmers is reaching into the millions, and no one knows when it will stop growing.

School officials are waiting for an engineering report before deciding what to do about two underground cavities at Trapnell Elementary School.

More cracks and depressions are showing in Hillsborough County streets.

The water management district has agreed to spend up to $250,000 to get private wells working.

Plant City is looking at spending possibly $2 million to deal with eight sinkholes or cavities on city property.

This is on top of $300,000 the Department of Transportation has already spent to fix depressions that closed lanes on Interstate 4.

School officials don't know when students from Trapnell - in the sinkhole-pocked area around Plant City - will return to their classrooms. They were sent to alternate schools as a precaution last week, when the first cavity on school property was discovered.

Since the first discovery, a second underground cavity was found, school district spokeswoman Linda Cobbe said.

An engineering report might be ready Friday and is expected to include an estimate of the cost and recommendations of what to do about the cavities.

Neither cavity at the school has collapsed into a sinkhole.

The first is about 80 to 100 feet from top to bottom. The second cavity is smaller, Cobbe said.

The school district has insurance to cover at least some of the cost, Cobbe said. Some 560 students from Trapnell are attending Strawberry Crest High School and Bailey Elementary School.

At Strawberry Crest on Friday, a fifth-grade class will have a lesson on sinkholes and hear school officials tell what will happen next on the Trapnell campus.

Science teacher Louise Croswait had been teaching her students about geology, sinkholes and related matters before the Trapnell problems surfaced. Friday, there will be a lesson, an announcement from district officials and a question-and-answer session with students.

Meanwhile, the number of sinkholes affecting county roads has continued to grow, with crews watching 30 cracks or depressions in roadways, up from 25 last week.

Workers managed to open one street, but portions of 13 roads remain closed, said Steve Valdez, manager with the county's Public Works Department.

Last week, county commissioners added $2 million to the contract with a company that examines and repairs sinkholes, bringing the budget for this year to $2.6 million.

The contract addition was based on the roughly $200,000 it cost to fix each of eight sinkholes last year. Valdez did not know if that will be enough.

"It's anybody's guess," he said.

There is no assurance this will be the end of problems.

"We're not sure when we'll see the end. We could get more cold weather, and it could start the whole cycle again," Valdez said.

On Wednesday, the executive director of the Southwest Florida Water Management District designated an emergency situation the will free $250,000 to repair scores of private wells that are still dry after farmers drained billions of gallons of water from the ground and sent aquifer levels plummeting.

Water permits from the district make farmers responsible for fixing wells damaged by pumping, and the district will seek reimbursement for any costs to fix private wells.

The money was allocated to let the district move quickly if farmers aren't able to get wells running within the 15 days permits require.

There are more than 50 dry wells in the area around Plant City for which the district could be reimbursed after fixing. Another eight are too far from strawberry farms, and the district would not recover money spent to fix those.

In Plant City, engineers estimated it could cost $2 million to fix eight sinkholes or cavities on city property, including two near a water tower that forced the city to drain half of its 500,000 gallons.

The city will have to look for help from the state or federal government to pay the bill, said Brett Gocka, city engineer.

"No one has $2 million sitting on the shelf," he said.

The rash of sinkholes and dry wells came after freezing temperatures threatened strawberry crops for 11 consecutive nights.

Going back to 1931, the previous longest string of consecutive freezes was six nights.