For more information on this project, contact Homer Rice, Environmental Health Director at the Sarasota County Health Department.
Sarasota County Second Quarter
Progress Report
Sarasota County Government began a series of neighborhood
initiatives in March 2004. After speaking to the organizers of the
initiative, Environmental Health discovered that we overlapped with
many of the objectives of the County program for the North Sarasota
area. The community is defined geographically and includes the low
income, racially diverse group of citizens we had initially
targeted. We therefore merged with this group to pursue our
initiatives.
Routine community meetings began April 13, 2004 and will be held
every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month. At the initial meeting on
April 13 there were 35 community members as well as two
representatives of County Government and one Environmental Health
representative. Mr. James Mathis was elected as the North Sarasota
Community group leader. Community members discussed the issues that
concerned them and created a prioritized list of concerns. In order
of priority, the issues are:
Code Enforcement
Lighting
Flooding and Drainage
Beautification and Cleanup
Streets and Sidewalks
Safety
Law Enforcement
Landlords
Water and Sewer connection
Education
Parks and Recreation
Development/Redevelopment of vacant lots.
During the April 27th meeting, the proposal for locating and
sampling sites of potential environmental contamination was
discussed. The group agreed to bring back a list of sites of concern
at the next meeting. Using our GIS layer of drinking water well
permits and SUPER Act sites, a map was created for community members
to indicate the location of their concerns. A list of potential
pollution sources was obtained from the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection to use as a guide for testing purposes. The
list of locations of concern provided by the community did not
correlate with the list of DEP facilities. The community members
were more concerned with an abandoned wastewater treatment plant and
a local automobile-recycling site, most likely because of the
visibility of these areas. A sampling plan has been developed to
address the areas of concern.
During the ensuing weeks representatives from County and City
Government have come to speak with the community group regarding the
list of issues. One overarching concern has been the continuing
failure of the sewer system in North Sarasota. Health Department
staff was able to obtain from FDEP a notice to the system owners to
repair some neglected infrastructure. We agreed to keep the
community up to date on the progress in repairing the system.
Another area of concern has been the continued dumping of tires and
debris into storm water drainage canals and vacant lots. The Health
Department purchased disposable cameras and notepads for members of
the community. These members agreed to photograph the areas of
concern and make notations on the physical location and any ideas
for prevention of dumping. The County agreed to post no dumping
signs at the locations. The community is very concerned with their
perception that some people just dont care where they dump material
and are simply too cheap to take material to the dump. The law
enforcement representative agreed to work with the community to
pursue any leads on the perpetrators. A community clean up day was
discussed where the County might supply roll off dumpsters for
residents to dispose of yard debris and material in an effort to
beautify the neighborhood.
Environmental Health will continue to work with Sarasota County and
the community to address areas of concern. During the next quarter
we intend to complete the sampling of the areas of community
concern, conduct a survey of the community to provide the County
with empirical data on street lighting and beautification issues,
and report back to the community on the status of sewer system
infrastructure repairs in North Sarasota.
Homer Rice, RS, MPH
Other PACE-EH Updates
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