According to knowledgeable sources, the illegal dumping was done in order to get rid of excess sewage and to avoid sludge dumping fees imposed by the county at county landfills. Knowledge of the practice went from line workers doing the dumping straight up through the utilities department to department heads John Lane and Patricia "Pat" Wilson, this according to John Newburn, a utilities supervisor who is just now willing to go on the record about the practice.

Newburn was contacted by phone after he sent the following e-mail to Venice Florida! dot com (which Newburn sent upon learning that he and utils supervisor Dave Adinolfi were being target investigated as part of the research for this story):

"I can assure you that I was given a directive to haul material that had been dumped in a drying bed at the island plant from main breaks to the airport. My immediate supervisor told me that he had talked to John L. & Pat W. and they said to take the materials there. If I remember my supervisor said it was costing to much to take it to the landfill. When the driver said the materials was leaking fluids on the road I told them to stop hauling, I then told my supervisor that I had stopped the hauling. I was against what we were doing from the start, but I was told to do it. I am sure that the crew will verify my memory of the events, in fact they will tell you I am a thorn in their side about following the laws."
-- e-mail to Venice Florida! dot com from John Newburn, 12/22/04

Venice Florida! dot com has verified the authenticity of the e-mail through examination of the accompanying route tracing information. Newburn himself has since verbally verified that he indeed did send it.

In a phone conversation that was a follow-up to the e-mail, Newburn stated that he ordered a halt to the dumpings after utils supervisor Troy Evans complained that Newburn's trucks were leaking sewage onto city streets while in the process of transporting the sewage to the airport. Newburn stated that Evans had watched the trucks leave the wastewater plant and immediately contacted Newburn by radio-phone to give him an earful. Newburn stated that the radio conversation with Evans along with confirmation of the leakage by his own driver made him nervous enough that he later went back to Adinolfi to complain. Newburn stated that he told Adinolfi that he would not participate in any further dumping on airport land whether ordered to or not.

"I was ordered by my supervisor, Dave Adinolfi, to take sewage from the drying beds at the Island Wastewater Treatment Plant and dump it at the airport. Adinolfi told me John Lane wanted it done. It was so we wouldn't have to pay at the county landfill," Newburn stated by phone.

Utils supervisor Dave Adinolfi refused to confirm or deny the allegations. "I have no direct knowledge of any such activity," Adinolfi stated by phone.

Newburn stated that in late 2001 and in early- to mid-2002, at least three full truckloads of raw sewage were taken from the drying beds at the Island Wastewater Plant to the "crop area" of the airport at his own direction. While Newburn denied participating directly in any other illegal dumpings of sewage or sludge, he stated that sewage and sludge dumps had been made in a number of areas of airport land over the years, including between the runways and at or near the festival areas where the annual Italian Fest takes place and where the Chamber of Commerce's Sharks Tooth Fest used to occur. Newburn denied directly participating in any dumping other than the three illegal dumps that he ordered.

Newburn further stated verbally that wastewater supervisor Shane Saputo would often borrow his crew and equipment for cleanup jobs on broken sewer pipes and that Newburn could never get straight answers as to what his crew was doing while under Saputo's direction. Shane Saputo resigned earlier this year under pressure from newly appointed City Manager Marty Black.

Newburn stated his crew crew consisted of utils workers Jim Evans, Tim Zimahl and Mike Vork. Evans (not to be confused with utils supervisor and EPA whistleblower Troy Evans) and Zimahl still work for the city, Vork is reportedly working for the City of North Port.

Another source confirms Newburn's tale
Another knowledgeable source within the utilities department, who spoke under condition of anonymity, told of more dumping: "It got to the point where the truck drivers weren't even taking sewage to the wastewater plant anymore when there was a broken sewer pipe, they'd just drive straight to the airport, dump their loads, go pick up more, go back to the airport... it went on and on and on." The source confirmed Newburn's account of sewage dumps being made in various areas of the airport, including the festival areas, and stated that the practice of dumping sewage at the airport had been ongoing for a number of years.

The source confirmed that some of the airport dumpings occurred prior to the Sharks Tooth Fest in 1999. Included in the Sharks Tooth Fest was an annual event called Mudball -- volleyball played in a dug ditch that had been filled up to a foot deep with water and mud. Hundreds of Venice area residents and workers participated in the Mudball games every year, with teams being sponsored by area businesses -- the games were the centerpiece of the fest.

The cover up extends to City Hall -- Troy Evans becomes the target in a municipal game of Shoot The Messenger
The cover-up of the dumping continued through the walls of city hall. In September of 2002, Venice Florida! dot com published a report of a city council meeting in which wastewater supervisor Troy Evans was punished for violating the chain of command.

Evans had previously gone to several council members, Mayor Dean Calamaras and then-City Manager George Hunt with alleged violations of environmental laws. In a very public roasting, council, the mayor and Hunt lambasted Evans for bypassing Lane and Wilson in the chain-of-command by taking his complaints straight to city hall. What was never publicly discussed was the nature of the allegations that Evans had brought forth and who Evans was pointing the finger at.

It is known as a matter of public record that Evans gave some kind of presentation that included photographs and documentation of alleged violations to Hunt and Calamaras in a prior meeting in Hunt's office. It is also a matter of public record that Evans was basically told to shut up. Hunt angrily and venomously denounced Evans at the August 27, 2002, city council meeting while Calamaras and then-Councilman David Farley agreed. Both Farley and then-Councilwoman Martha Hanneman were privy to Evans' presentation, as Farley stated on the record that Evans had visited him at his business, Farley Funeral Home, and Hanneman publicly made a similar claim about a discussion with Evans about environmental issues.

Within the past week, Venice Florida! dot com has finally confirmed what it long suspected -- that part or all of Evans' presentation concerned deliberate sewage dumping that was ongoing at the airport. As such, Evans' allegations were against the entire utilities department, including Lane and Wilson -- the very people council stated he should have originally taken his complaints to and the very people who were the chain of command that Evans was publicly punished for violating!

No internal investigation was ever ordered or requested into the illegal dumping by any official that Evans had spoken to, with the notable exception of Hanneman. Hanneman became so outraged by the knowledge that she stated that EPA Criminal Investigator Dan Green finally contacted her to tell her to calm down and to not discuss what she knew with anyone as it was under investigation by the EPA.

Additionally, Hanneman was the only elected official to protest the treatment that council was giving to Evans. Hanneman foresaw the trouble council was heading into and even specifically mentioned that this could be a violation of the Whistleblower Act. Hanneman's complaints and warnings were blown off by Hunt and Calamaras.

Evans intimidated into silence
The implication is chilling and highly conspiratorial, and all of this would be highly unbelievable if told in a fictional story: Evans was deliberately placed in a Catch-22 where there was no way that he could do the right thing according to Hunt, Calamaras and Farley. This also means that Hunt, Calamaras and Farley definitely learned of the illegal dumping from Evans and chose to do nothing to investigate whether or not the claims were true. Instead the three ganged up on Evans in an attempt to verbally pummel him into silence.

Evans went into retreat and licked his wounds while the public never learned what was really going on out at the airport. In one of the ultimate ironies of the whole affair, Hunt would later order Evans to go to a psychologist as part of Evans' rehabilitation and reintegration into the Venice mindset. An earlier e-mailed death threat to Evans from Shane Saputo's brother, John Saputo, also a city utils supervisor, went unpunished by the city despite the fact that it had been sent from a city-owned computer. Evans had filed a felony criminal complaint in the matter and Saputo ended up pleading guilty in criminal court in exchange for entry into a first-time felony offender program that resulted in adjudication being withheld. John Saputo was laid off in the Bloody Tuesday purge of August 2004 when OMI took over management of the city's utilities department.

Evans learned one very hard and very painful lesson from the whole ordeal: if anyone was ever going to do the right thing, it wouldn't be someone with authority who was elected to a Venice office or was on the City of Venice's payroll.

The silencing job had worked beautifully. Calamaras, Hunt and Farley gained over two years of blissful public ignorance by the way that they handled Evans' complaints. The public wouldn't learn of the sewage dumping at the airport until the publication of the story that you are currently reading.

Evans and two other employees subsequently filed Whistleblower lawsuits against the city for the city's treatment, those lawsuits were recently settled out of court. Evans' settlement calls for a $25,000 lump-sum payment along with other conditions.

When contacted for background on this story, Evans refused to answer any questions, stating he was under instructions from his attorney not to discuss the matter at this time. He referred all inquiries to his attorney, Tommy Meyer: "I wish I could help, but I just can't say anything at this point in time. You'll have to talk to Tommy."

The EPA is supposedly aware of the airport situation and the illegal dumping at the airport is supposedly part of the EPA's larger investigation into the city and the city's wastewater department. And yes, the EPA investigation is still very much alive -- Venice Florida! dot com has learned that EPA Criminal Investigator Dan Green was back in town within the past week, presumably requestioning some city employees.

Still dumping at the airport?
Venice Florida! dot com has been hearing unconfirmed rumors that some sewage dumping may still be occurring at the airport.

Sewage aside, Sarasota County workers have been dumping asphalt and other road materials in voluminous amounts along the southern access road over the past year -- there currently are mountains of road debris piled along the northern side of the southern access road.

Additionally, there has been much material dredged from the airport and transported to the back parking lot of Caspersen Beach, this to act as landfill for upcoming work to be done there. While it is unknown if any sewage sludge was part of what was hauled to the beach parking lot, this author did notice in past months that the piles at Caspersen appeared to have a significant amount of lime chunks in them. Lime is used heavily in the processing of sewage into sludge.

Venice Florida! dot com did take photos of the piles at Caspersen and e-mailed the photos to the EPA. No response was received -- under the circumstances, the EPA can still not officially acknowledge that any investigation is ongoing.

What about the FAA?
Good question. The airport is on Federal land, specially deeded to the City of Venice in a caretaker type of arrangement with the FAA acting as a sort-of Federal overseer.

Due to the nature of the way this story evolved into the holiday season, there was no way to contact the FAA before publication to get any comments. Follow-up on this story will include inquiries to the FAA as to any interest they may have in the story.

Black taken by surprise
All of this came as news to City Manager Marty Black. Several months ago, when Venice Florida! dot com first mentioned the direction that this story was taking and that the story was being vigorously pursued, Black started doing some internal investigating of his own but ended up flat against a wall of silence from the utilities department. "I can't find any evidence to support the allegations you are making," Black told Venice Florida! dot com.

Black wasn't alone in his frustrations. Venice Florida! dot com was running into the same wall. While this web site was receiving information that indicated that there indeed had been sewage dumps made at the airport, nobody was initially willing to make any quotable statements even under the condition of anonymity. Fear, of course, was the primary reason for the silence: fear for their jobs, fear of former and present city officials, fear of the EPA and fear of getting their names dragged through the media.

Black voiced his concerns that the story might be untrue, that it might be a setup designed to make this site look bad by publishing a fictional story as truth-- a not unrealistic possibility and something that has been attempted on a few occasions in the past. To that end, Black stated, "In none of my conversations with the EPA or the DEP have they shared that concern [sewage dumping at the airport]. Obviously, we have concerns with any issues when it comes to environmental compliance. I will ask for a review of the allegations that have been brought forward [after publication and a review of this story]."

The one public official with full knowledge that was still on council, Mayor Calamaras, obviously wasn't racing to fill in the blanks for Black.

Troy Evans had already told his tale to the city and went through a living hell for doing so. Now under orders from both the EPA and his own attorney to not discuss the matter, he was also a frustratingly closed and locked door.

Venice Florida! dot com has no reason to disbelieve Black's lack of knowledge. In fact, Black has been highly cooperative with Venice Florida! dot com through the course of investigating this story, in spite of the fact that the research initially indicated that this was, in all likelihood, a story that might never be able to be told.

Follow ups and clarifications, 12/27/04:
Adinolfi took some time off for personal reasons from July 10 through November of 2001. He reported back to work on a part-time basis in early December of 2001 and resumed his full-time status on December 31, 2001. When asked about the timetable of Adinolfi's time off, Newburn replied that the three dumps must have happened in early- to mid-2001 and early- to mid-2002: "It was before Dave took time off and after Dave came back to work. It was a while ago, it's hard to figure out the exact dates."

John Saputo didn't go entirely unscathed for the e-mail sent to Troy Evans. In July of 2002, an in-house investigation resulted in a recommendation of a 5-day suspension and a written reprimand. City Manager George Hunt ended up giving Saputo a 5-day unpaid suspension. Saputo and other utils supervisors went to court over the city's handling of accusations and punishments against them. Saputo's unpaid suspension was overturned by Judge Becky Titus, who ruled in March of 2003 that the city had not followed due process in the investigation and subsequent punishment of Saputo and two other utils supervisors. Titus never addressed the validity of the city's claims of wrongdoing by the trio. The criminal case against Saputo for sending a threatening e-mail was unaffected by Titus' ruling.