After completing the latest round of soil testing as detailed in their report of February 28 2020, SP2 Technologies prepared a plan to remove the contaminated soil from the golf course. That plan is shown below, and contains a map showing the areas of soil to be removed. This is the latest step towards obtaining a No Further Action letter from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection that would allow the limited use of the golf course for passive recreational use only. The FDEP created a new standard for remediation for use as passive recreation that was less restrictive than the standard for residential use. What that means is that were there ever to be a plan to build residential units, the land would need to be remediated to the residential standard.
Pasco County has stated that they would not proceed with the purchase of the golf course until a No Further Action letter was obtained. It is worth noting that this was never a condition in the original purchase contract. The original contract allowed the county to purchase the golf course without ever having it remediated first. In fact, no environmental study was even conducted until after the purchase was put on hold by the lawsuit filed by Susan Levine and Diane Kobernick.
In September 2016 the county passed an ordinance creating a Municipal Service Benefit Unit (MSBU) to tax the Gulf Harbors homeowners for the county to purchase the golf course. That MSBU provides that all costs pertaining to the purchase and future maintenance of the recreational portion will be a cost to the MSBU, i.e. the homeowners. Very telling is that the plain language of the MSBU ordinance does not exclude any environmental costs, so all of the testing and soil remediation costs could be added to the costs the homeowners would be responsible to pay. Because of the lawsuit, the county has now stated that the MSBU would not be charged for the environmental costs.
That lawsuit is still active, in order to ensure that the county’s promises are kept in that regard, and to provide further protections to Gulf Harbors that as the owner of the property, the county will have to abide by other restrictions and safeguards to prevent future use of the property that would be detrimental to the Gulf Harbors community.
ISR Plan w App A 3-16-20
