Construction debris, discharge leads to environmental concerns

David Lockwood worries about the wildlife.

Just steps from his airy back patio, past a family of ducks lounging beneath a shade tree, sits a triangular retention pond. For countless Floridians, this is their “water-front view,” and for Lockwood, it’s been a source of tranquility, where those ducks, and also deer, turtles, ospreys and bluegill fish, provide a welcome glimpse of nature.

For the last year, however, this little slice of paradise, just south of the Orange-Seminole county line, has changed.

A slab-sided storage facility is rising from the ground next to the retention pond, and construction debris now litters that ground, and that pond.

“I’ve been seeing this project go on for a year, and what’s happened in the past month with all the pollution and all the runoff and all the styrofoam particles just contaminating [the pond],” Lockwood said. “Back before they built this building … we had every kind of wildlife.”

Now, Lockwood said, the deer are mostly gone. The pond is murky. The ospreys are “having a little bit of trouble catching fish.”

For months, Lockwood said, small white Styrofoam beads and stucco debris have littered the pond’s surface. The construction company, South Carolina-based A.L. Adams Construction, directed workers at the site, at 4989 N. Tanner Road in Orlando, to try to clean this up with nets akin to what you’d scoop leaves from a swimming pool.

The project’s superintendent, Terrence Rhodes, said debris is an inevitable part of the construction. “When you put stucco and foam on a building, when they have to basically shave it down to make it fine, these little bebes — which is foam — come off of it …We do the best we can with that, but when the wind is blowing and stuff, that foam, it just blows anywhere the wind takes it.

“What [the workers] have been doing is they’ve been going out to the pond and trying to clean that stuff out with the net type deal to get the foam out of the water,” he said.

The beads, however, are still visibly embedded on the shore of the pond. According to Denise Cochran, Environmental Program Supervisor, Compliance Support and Strategic Engagement for the Orange County Environmental Protection Division (EPD), “construction-related materials in and around stormwater ponds may impact pond function by not providing sufficient flood [reduction] and water-quality treatment.” 

“They don’t just dissolve. They don’t go away. Styrofoam will just contaminate and linger,” Lockwood, a landscaper, said. 

On March 10, Lockwood filmed a thick white liquid with “the consistency of milk” flowing directly into the pond from the pipes that feed it, leading him to call 311 and local and state environmental officials.

That same day, the Orange County Public Works’ Stormwater Management Division confirmed the discharge and reported it to EPD, which instructed the construction company to “complete immediate corrective actions” by the end of that day. Those actions included “securing material, protecting inlets and drains, preventing downstream impacts, and contacting a vacuum truck company to remove the contaminated pond water.”

The source and substance of the liquid is under investigation by the EPD and the department is expected to have results imminently. OCN will update this story when the results are available.

“The primary goals in cases like this are to stop further discharges into Orange County’s stormwater system, contain existing discharges and to restore water quality,” EPD said in a statement to OCN. “We encourage residents and visitors to use the County’s 311 line and app to report dumping or other material mismanagement. Thanks to a neighbor’s vigilance in this case, we were alerted to the site and are working to prevent violations like this one from recurring.”

This specific pond is a wet-bottom pond, which is designed to hold a permanent pool of water and collect stormwater runoff. 

Orange County Public Works Department’s public relations and outreach specialist Darrell Moody said the pond is designed to retain most of the water that flows into it, including contaminated water. It should only allow water to flow to other water bodies, such as other ponds, wetlands, lakes or rivers, if the level gets too high to contain, in which case it would flow out through what’s known as a “control structure.”“Nothing from the pond is flowing out through the control structure,” she said of the current condition of the pond.

However, Orange and Seminole County officials are still concerned when debris does infringe on wildlife areas and water systems because of potential, unseen impacts. Orange County EPD said the effect of construction-related material “has the potential to impact downstream water bodies and their associated habitats.”

“That’s unacceptable,” Seminole County Commissioner Bob Dallari said. “The environment doesn’t pay attention to the jurisdictional line.”

After learning about the issue, Dallari said he will be contacting Seminole County’s Public Works, Planning and Stormwater departments so they can reach out to their counterparts in Orange County and “get this under control.”

The area’s Orange County commissioner, Kelly Martinez Semrad, was shocked to learn of the issues and is concerned for the connected waters between Orange and Seminole counties.

“One of the things I always say, particularly when we’re in the Econ River basin, is water knows no boundaries. It’s not going to stop at a county line, so Seminole County water problems are going to become Orange County [problems] and vice versa,” she said. “The responsibility is going to fall on Orange County. If something needs to be cleaned up because there’s an environmental issue, then the responsibility is going to be on Orange County and it’s going to be on that developer or the builder, whoever was in violation.

“A lot of times, developers or builders, they think that the water quality in retention ponds is negligible, that it’s not a big deal, but it is because our water bodies eventually all link together,” Semrad said. “They all drain somewhere, the water goes somewhere, and I’m super passionate about wildlife and making sure that we leave them with a habitat that they can survive in and thrive, and that we’re not destroying what was their home first. And that we leave them more room, like when we talk about a wildlife corridor.”

The contractor has been “very cooperative,” Moody said. They have had third-party environmental specialists take additional samples of the water, are continuing remediation efforts and are in contact with county officials for further guidance. 

Semrad said that when environmental issues occur along county lines, it is important for the county officials on both sides of that line to work together and “be good neighbors.” She said that her office will be following up on the investigation “to make sure that we do our due diligence to protect any water body.”

To try to prevent issues like this from occurring during construction in Seminole County, Dallari said a construction site meeting between inspectors and contractors takes place prior to any work being started. Additionally, inspectors visit sites “routinely” to observe any potential issues, and “if they see anything, they will correct it.”

For Lockwood, he just hopes the debris stays away and the pond can recover.

“I’m the little pesty guy causing ‘em all this kind of irritation, but I’m doing it because I love wildlife and I love animals and I get joy from seeing an osprey dive into the back retention pond and there’s fish,” he said. “It’s part of what makes Florida great, is we have wildlife everywhere, and I want to try to fight to keep it that way.”

Want to contact your local elected officials to weigh in on anything you read here? Find the Seminole County Commissioners’ contact page here.