In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!
Monday, August 31, 2015
Another sewage spill?: St. Augustine City Manager JOHN PATRICK REGAN, P.E. Slow to Respond: National Response Center Report No. 1127130:
Sunday, August 30, 2015 saw torrential rains in St. Augustine and another apparent sewage spill into our San Sebastian River here in St. Augustine, Florida.
Two friends driving by observed the sewage spill and called me.
Immediately, I reported the sewage spill to the City Manager, JOHN REGAN, a/k/a JOHN PATRICK REGAN, P.E., at 5:34 PM sending several test messages.
Mr. REGAN did not respond to the text messages for approximately one (1) hour and 49 minutes later: he finally did respond at 7:23 PM, some 109 minutes later, when I received the laconic text message:
"Got it."
When my text messages were not answered, I reported the City of St. Augustine's latest spill to the non-police emergency number for SAPD and to Coast Guard Petty Officer O'Brian, with our fifteen-federal agency National Response Center in Washington, D.C.: he assigned it report No. 1127130.
Waiting for answers to questions and open records requests.
Our City has been fined tens of thousands of dollars -- and officials barely escaped federal and state criminal prosecution -- over sewage and solid waste pollution.
This is not the first sewage spill in St. Augustine history, but will it be the last?
Let's address crumbling infrastructure and decrepit management.
Let us address root cause analysis, system failures, weekend overcapacity caused by overdevelopment and poor city planning amidst corruption by developers, condition adverse to quality reports (CAQRs), alarms, battery backups and occurrence reporting.
It's time for a change.
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