Benzene probe creates a fissure

In a mystery chemical contamination, county agencies clashed over one possible suspect, an explosive containing benzene used in rock-mining operations.

BY CURTIS MORGAN cmorgan@MiamiHerald.com

When benzene popped up in Miami-Dade's largest wellfield, it triggered an intense investigation.

The probe left water managers at odds with environmental enforcers over a diesel-fueled explosive one rock-mining company used to blast into the same Biscayne Aquifer tapped by the wells.

''We added all this up,'' former water director Bill Brant said. ``The benzene was being found at 60 feet; the explosive was drilled down to 60 feet . . . The explosive contains benzenes, and there was just no other apparent source.''

But John Renfrow, then director of the Department of Environmental Resource Management, argues multiple factors pointed elsewhere.

`IT WAS INCONCLUSIVE'

''Whether it was coming from the rock miners or . . . from some guy out there in the middle of the night dumping something or from space invaders, we could never say,'' said Renfrow, who replaced Brant earlier this year. ``It was inconclusive.''

Brant and two water engineers testified as part of a lawsuit brought by environmental groups seeking to overturn federal permits allowing more mining around the Northwest wellfield, source of 40 percent of the county's water.

When benzene showed up at five times allowable levels in January 2005 in well No. 1, then a trace amount in No. 2, Brant quickly ordered those and the next two wells up the line shut down and a probe launched to find the source.

It was critical, he said, to pinpoint how much ''nasty stuff'' might be out there. Because a well acts like a straw in a glass, continued pumping ``could make a bad situation terrible by pulling this contamination source into the wellfield.''

For months, DERM and water engineers hunted on foot and by air, finding an abandoned fuel farm with bullet-riddled tanks and a car sunk in one lake.

DERM even examined whether the water department might have polluted its own wells with oil used on pumps or in an incident when a paint crew cleaned equipment.

In the end, all were ruled out.

Then in April 2005, the highest test spike yet showed up a little more than a half-mile away from well No. 1 -- adjacent to a lake being blasted by White Rock Quarries with a pourable explosive made of ammonia nitrate mixed with a small percentage of diesel fuel.

Water engineers focused on mining, a source they said DERM seemed to balk at aggressively pursuing.

By May, tensions escalated into an exchange of testy memoes between Brant and Renfrow.

Brant testified that shortly later, Joe Ruiz, then an assistant county manager, ordered him to ''stop writing memoes'' and let DERM lead the probe.

''All I remember was references to The Miami Herald. . . . I didn't get much of an explanation,'' he said.

OFFICIAL RESIGNED

Brant, asked to resign amid questions over uncollected fees from developers and water supply plans, declined to elaborate outside court.

Ruiz ''categorically denies'' making the statement and said his sole goal was to resolve interagency squabbling.

Renfrow also defended his department's work as ''diligent'' and ''exhaustive.'' Seventy test wells were sunk, including on miners' land, and all possibilities were analyzed, he said.

''There was no evidence to pin it on these guys,'' he said.

Renfrow bristled at suggestions his staff shied from probing the powerful mining industry.

''We treated them just like we would have treated anybody else,'' he said.

Website provided by ImageGrafix - Computer and Network Systems - Site Hosting Solutions
© Copyright  2003 ImageGrafix. All Rights Reserved.