PENSACOLA, Florida, May 5, 2004 (ENS) - "A grand jury in Escambia County has issued a report finding "widespread" groundwater contamination in the county, and blaming the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and local authorities for failing to prevent or clean up the pollution.
The report makes 24 recommendations to improve ground water quality in Escambia County, located on the western border of Florida's panhandle region.
Despite its finding that "extensive and persistent pollution leads to adverse health effects disruptive of the normal life cycle, including premature death and debilitation, and possibly reproductive impairment," the 21 member grand jury did not issue any criminal indictments for officials named in its report.
"More than one-half of the county's public supply wells has been contaminated with dry cleaning solvents, pesticides, or petroleum products," the grand jury said in the summary of its report, which was written in the public interest at the request of the Office of the State Attorney of the First Judicial Circuit. There are a number of severely contaminated areas in the county, including six Superfund sites, dozens of dry cleaning sites, and hundreds of petroleum storage sites. In the southern part of the county, contamination is "substantial" and has resulted in a well construction moratorium, well closures, and water filtration, the panel found after hearing from numerous witnesses and reviewing hundreds of documents."
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http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=31411
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