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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Linda Young

Clean Water Network of FL

April 20, 2009 850/322-7978

MAJOR ECOLOGICAL DISASTER ON PANHANDLE ESTUARYSt Joe dumped swamp for airport --- Airport now dumps tons of mud in estuary

Panama City, FL -- Dire predictions of ecological disaster made by environmental groupswho vigorously opposed building a new airport in a deep swamp, have come true intragic proportions for West Bay, which was recently (pre-construction) part of one of themost diverse and pristine estuaries in all of North America.

Four-thousand acres of deep swampland, donated by the St. Joe Development Companyfor the construction of an international airport, is situated at the bottom of an 80,000 acre

bowl and was, pre-construction, remarkable for hundreds of acres of deep cypressswamps, high ground-water, abundant wetlands, and crystal clear streams which slowlyfed two sandy-bottomed creeks that eventually opened into West Bay. To date, 5.7million cubic yards of fill have been placed over these wetlands and streams. In addition,a crosswind runway will require approximately one million cubic yards of fill dirt.

Since the land clearing began in January 2008, rain events, large and small, have createda deluge of mud and standing water on the airport site. The 80,000 acres above theairport still releases a tremendous amount of water through the airport site, but instead ofbeing absorbed by thousands of acres of wetlands, the water now finds an imperviousrunway and an inadequate stormwater treatment system. The 7,200 linear feet of slow-

moving winding streams are now paved over and the groundwater no longer flows evenlythrough the cleansing soils. The water rushes over the newly filled and graded land andcarries tons of mud to Crooked Creek and Burnt Mill Creek which, as expected, aredischarging rivers of mud into the highly productive fish-nursery marshes of West Bay.

Onsite workers have told the Clean Water Network of Florida (CWN-FL) that thecontractor who is building the airport is diverting the water on and around the runway toCrooked Creek with a 24-inch pipe. Aerial photos of the site (attached) bear this out.Any discharge to surface waters is prohibited by the general permit that the AirportAuthority is utilizing and no permit for a discharge has been granted for the pipe.

The destruction of Crooked and Burnt Mill Creeks and West Bay has been happeningfor many months now and finally after many requests to the Florida Department ofEnvironmental Protection for appropriate enforcement action, apparently someenforcement is being initiated, says Linda Young, director of the Clean Water Networkof Florida, the organization that led the fight to stop the destruction of West Bay with anunneeded airport. We have also alerted the US Environmental Protection Agency andsent the photos that document the violations. We are in a wait-and-see mode. Thissituation demands more than a slap on the wrist. It requires a re-thinking of the entire

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airport/West Bay development scheme, Young said.

The airport construction was opposed by the voters of Bay County as well as numerousgroups such as the CWN of FL, Citizens for the Bay, Friends of PFN, Sierra Club, NRDCand Defenders of Wildlife. Experts for the groups warned FDEP officials, the public and

the courts, of the dangers of destroying the vast wetlands that capture the voluminousamounts of groundwater and rainfall, and then slowly release the water into West Bay,which was known as an abundant fishery and one of the six most diverse estuaries in allof North America. The only environmental group that supported the destruction wasFlorida Audubon, who received large donations in cash and land from the St. JoeCompany.

Protecting West Bay from after effects of bad development in its watershed, such as thisairport, has been a long battle with our local officials, in the courts, and withenvironmental agencies that are charged with protecting our resources, says DianeBrown, member of Citizens for the Bay. We are now seeing the results of their failure to

enforce local, state and federal laws that would have prevented this airport from beingbuilt in this environmentally sensitive location. It has been a predictable disaster waitingto happen, Brown said.

Before the airport construction even began, CWN-FL filed complaints with the US ArmyCorps of Engineers and the Florida DEP regarding illegal dredge and fill activities on andnear the airport site. Eventually the Airport Authority signed an enforcement/consentletter for these violations prior to the COEs 404 wetlands/dredge and fill permit beingissued. The current violations indicate they cannot keep their commitments to protect thenatural resources.

The Airport Authority and St. Joe have announced plans to fill thousands of more acresaround the airport for commercial and residential development. The company essentiallyowns the entire watershed for West Bay and needed the airport as a means to get publiclyfunded infrastructure into the watershed, which is very wet and had few paved roads andno water, sewer, power or other infrastructure.

At its meeting last week, the Bay County Airport Authority discussed how they could get$400,000.00 to construct two large canals from the site to nearby creeks to keep the sitedrained. The FAA rules do not allow standing water near airports because the waterattracts wildlife (especially birds), which are a hazard to planes.

Any attempt to secure a permit to construct a direct discharge to the creeks or the baywill be aggressively opposed, said Young. Any future filling of wetlands in the WestBay watershed should be disallowed by state and federal agencies and the AirportAuthority should be required to take immediate actions to stop the destruction of thisimportant estuary including removal of the runway if necessary. This was a failedproject from its conception, Young says.

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