THE SHOCKING INSIDE STORY OF SUNRISE WATERWAY/SUNSHINE LAKE DISASTER!

EXCLUSIVELY ON SBG!

Editor’s note:

The following inside story on the Sunrise Waterway environmental disaster and the multi-million dollar failed dredge was secretly provided to Mr. Scott Andrichak. He kindly shared it with Stop Bad Government and he tells us he has only edited it for clarity, with the authors’ permission.

Readers will quickly see that the authors have the technical background to speak on these matters. SBG admits we have no expertise in this area and we have attempted to verify all statements with our engineering sources. Those sources have no connection to this disaster, other than paying for it with their taxes, like the rest of us.

We hope readers will understand and appreciate the risks to the people involved in exposing this valuable information. The Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners and their surrogates have threatened publicly, on multiple occasions, legal action against those who dare to speak up and expose the corruption and incompetence within our county government. SBG sincerely thanks all involved in the making of this story and dared to shed light on this environmental, health and $5,000,000+ fiscal disaster that has dragged on for nearly seven years, with no end in sight as the algae has returned, as predicted, and county officials remain incapable of solving the problem.

Although she has no connection to this story, a special thank you to the courageous Mrs. Joanne Mulvaney for her unrelenting public efforts to warn county politicians and bureaucrats that something was seriously wrong with Sunrise Waterway starting in 2009. SBG will have more on the Charlotte County government’s cover up of this disaster in the near future.

If you wish to put a spotlight on a story of corruption or incompetence with the aim of improving local government, get it to SBG with caution. Sources tell us County Administrator Raymond Sandrock has instructed the county IT Department to track IP addresses to see which county employees’ computers are viewing our website.

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Part One – Background History, Amplifying (or Multiplying)
Mistakes and the Atkins Report

The story that I’m about to share with you is the real story behind the Sunshine Lake/Sunrise Waterway algae clean-up project. Regardless of how much you may have tried to keep up with what was going on during this multi-year debacle, I can assure you that you have been misinformed along the way. This project was flawed and riddled with errors, mismanagement, lies, wasteful spending, and incompetence since Charlotte County was forced to initiate the clean-up of the lake. There were huge mistakes made nearly every step of the way. What I’m about to share with you is the story, complete with the missteps that plagued this project right from the very beginning.

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The Atkins Report

To an untrained eye, this study, dated April 2012, looked reasonably well-put together. However, there were some serious issues right from the start. The most obvious issue was that Atkins appears to have only been paid for surveying Sunshine Lake (from Gertrude Street North) and not Sunrise Waterway (Gertrude South to Tamiami Trail/US 41). They were careful to put this wording into the study along with an estimate of what they thought might be in Sunrise Waterway. The county should have paid Atkins to survey the entire body of water.

There was another, key error made in the surveying work that Atkins did do. Atkins stated that they determined the depths of the sludge by using bathymetric surveying (sonar) along with checking the depth of the lake with a solid rod. The idea behind using bathymetric surveying is that the sonar will bounce off the top of the algae blanket in the lake, giving a depth of the water in that spot. Then, by driving a rod through the algae layer, hitting the bottom of the lake, and subtracting the bathymetric depth from that depth was supposed to give an estimate of how deep the algae was in each spot that was sampled.

What was missing was a manual, visual check of the algae layer itself. The tool to do this with is a simple, clear plastic tube with a valve, used in nearly every water and wastewater plant in the United States for exactly this purpose. The reason why using this tube in conjunction with sonar is that lighter, fluffier solid (algae) particles will allow the sonar to pass through them before hitting enough algae to give a reading. This is how Atkins managed to miss around 6-12” of algae throughout the area that they did survey.

The most relevant issue to every concerned citizen of Port Charlotte is whether or not sewage leaks fed this algae bloom. This study seems to be dismissive of the idea, stating that the Lake, based on their estimates, had about 5,600 tons of algae particles. Based on very commonly used calculations, a massive, almost unbelievable quantity of sewage would have had to leak into Sunshine Lake to feed such a quantity of algae.

This 5,600 ton number is indeed, dubious, and Atkins should have known there wasn’t that much algae in the lake. By their own calculations, there would have had to be 100,000,000 to 150,000,000 gallons of sewage leaking into the lake over the course of several years. Using their estimate of 27,000 cubic yards of algae, and their 15.25 lbs of algae per cubic foot, Atkins was assuming that the algae in situ was about 14.5% solids. That number should have set off red lights in any experienced person’s minds. Organic solids, such as algae, do not get that high without some sort of treatment or drying. Subsequent composite and grab sampling of the algae of the lake in situ showed percent solids concentrations of 3.6% to 10.3% solids.

There is only one way to get a 14% solids number on such material: if there was inorganic sediments included in the sampling of the algae. It’s interesting, and odd, to note that while this study was commissioned to examine the algae, Atkins did do a sediment sieve test. Such testing isn’t relevant for algae removal. Using a 10.3% solids number (the highest number reached on any tests of the algae in situ), and recalculating the tonnage, the amount of algae in situ would drop to approximately 3,950 tons. This would also drop the sewage leak needed to sustain such a bloom down to 70,000,000 to 105,000,000 gallons. It is important to note this is a high number. It could have been less, therefore making the amount of sewage needed to feed the bloom even less, and therefore more probable.

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The Bidding

One key error of Charlotte County that hampered the progress of the project from inception to completion was the lack of knowledge of doing such a clean-up within the county’s engineering department. In the absence of expertise in such matters, they reverted to treating this project more like a construction upgrade than an environmental clean-up. While it’s understandable and acceptable for smaller governments to lack the knowledge in this sort of clean-up work, it’s expected that they bring in an engineering firm with experience to study, write the bid documents, and oversee the project. While there are issues with the Atkins report, it appears that Atkins would have been more qualified to oversee the project than the firm that was selected to do the bidding.

Their April 2012 report appeared to be the last time Atkins had any role in this project for over one year. The bid package was handled by Coastal Engineering. Shockingly, the bid documents were conspicuously lacking any information on any quantities of algae in the lake and waterway. The first question asked on the first addendum, which is where bidders ask relevant questions about a project, dealt with the algae quantity in both the lake and waterway. What was surprising was that the reply that came from Charlotte County was approximately 30,000 cubic yards. This number, which was for the lake only in the Atkins Report, was being represented as the total quantity in the entire body of water!

The lack of thoroughness of the bidding process must have been apparent to the general contractors. According to the sign in sheet at the pre-bid meeting, only four contractors showed up. Two ended up bidding on the project. Only one, Prolime, had all of their paperwork straight and they were awarded the project.

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Coming next in Part 2, the clean up team and the very expensive cost overruns. Charlotte County government calls those “change orders”. Who was responsible and was anyone held accountable?