Court Okays Cement Plant Suit; Governments Block Other Environmentalists

As the feds and state legislators do their best to destroy hard-won environmental protections, one citizen activist group has won the the right to go to court in its fight to stop the proposed cement plant near Newberry.

The Haile Community Association suit charges county commission violated its own Comprehensive Growth Plan in granting a special use permit for the Florida Rock plant. Commission said the plant was an "extractive" operation in an agricultural area. Plans call for the plant to be built on the edge of an open limestone mine with the aquifer exposed.

After the county decision on the cement plant, the citizen group raised funds to hire attorney John McPherson and gathered new evidence on environmental damage by cement plants.

The county had tried to stop the new evidence from being admitted in a judicial review. County Atty. Dave Wagner said that the group would have to appeal, rather than sue, because a 1993 court ruling gave the commission "quasi-judicial" powers. The association contends that the cement plant violates regulations of the Environmental Protection Association (EPA), will contaminate the air and threatens the region's drinking water.

At the same time city and county governments have handed environmental activists some real setbacks. The name of the activist game is Preventing Water Pollution, Saving the Aquifer. That's our drinking water they are playing with, folks.

To bring you up to date on the area losses:

• County Commissioners have approved a zoning change to permit the building of a student apartment complex in the environmentally sensitive Bivens Arm area. (See page 5, People for Land Use Control (PLUC) organizes to give citizens more voice in zoning.)
• A state engineering study has shown landfill liners leak far more pollutants than expected. State Department of Environmental Engineers (DER) will investigate the issue and the need for tighter landfill regulations. Yet County Commission continues to promote the Delta landfill near Orange Heights, an area vulnerable to water pollution. (See page 6, Alachua County Vulnerable).
• With this issue, FACT begins reports on long range plans by the St. Johns River Water Management District (see page 6) and the Suwannee River Water Management District (next issue). All state water management districts have prepared plans which will be the basis of statewide water plans to be made by the next legislature.
• Concerned citizens, pay attention!