Just Say No!
Dear Editor,
Regarding FKAA’s most recent threats to folks who do not connect to the sewer system within 30 days of a notice to connect or who refuse FKAA demands to “grant” an easement: Just say no. No easement ever, hook up in about a year.
We’ve checked with local legal counsel who say that despite FKAA’s written and verbal threats, FKAA has no legal authority to require the easements or to penalize people who refuse to grant them. Counsel gave the following opinions:
1. The Florida Administrative Code requires that FKAA “…shall maintain ownership
and responsibility for all components of the pressure sewer system.” The law does not allow or enable a private citizen to own any component of the system. Therefore, FKAA cannot use the threat of requiring the homeowner to purchase and maintain the pumps in order to coerce an easement.
2. The Monroe County Code Section 20-105 (e) requires FKAA to make the sewer
connection available at the homeowners’ property line in the public right of way. It does not authorize FKAA to place the sewer connection on private property, nor authorize the demand of an easement from homeowners.
3. FKAA has threatened property owners with monetary fines, and even DOH condemnation of their homes if they don’t hook up to the system promptly. FKAA and Monroe County do not have legal authority to require connections within 30 days. Florida Statute 381.00655 provides that homeowners have one year to connect, if their onsite system is working properly, or 90 days to connect if it requires repairs. Although counties may adopt their own ordinances concerning hook up schedules, these must be consistent with 381.00655, Florida Statutes. See, 381.0016, Florida Statutes.
FKAA’s demand letters threaten things actually beyond their legal authority if homeowners refuse to do things not required by law of them. FKAA’s actions appear to be coercive, a violation of the public trust, and feel a lot like extortion.
Say “No easement, ever.” Take a year to connect. Less sewage effluent will then go into the shallow wells while the deep well is completed.
Banks Prevatt
for Dump the Pumps, Inc.
If you want to get ahead of the mess a group of concerned citizens must send no trespass notices, individually and as a group, to this “sewer authority and it’s representatives” . Until they are warned they will walk all over you.
I agree, Banks. Just don’t sign the easement agreement for the installation of the E-1 grinder pumps. Make FKAA and Monroe County start the legal war in court over the easement agreements, while property owners in Cudjoe Regional call the Sheriff every time FKAA sends someone onto their property about installing a grinder pump there. I wish all property owners in Cudjoe Regional slated to receive grinder pumps had taken that approach to begin with. As as you and I know, it was one thing for people to voice objections to grinder pumps, it was another thing for them to just say no and call the Sheriff when threatened by FKAA personnel or employees of the contractor FKAA hired to do the work. I hope I’m wrong, but I imagine time and events will cause FKAA, the Monroe County Commission and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to rue the day they ever heard of an E-1 grinder pump. We told them that, we explained it in simple plain English. They plowed ahead anyway. Might be, the E-1 grinder pump environmental fallout will dwarf concern over the 4 shallow injection wells FKAA and Monroe County installed near the treatment plant on Cudjoe Key, before agreeing, after a lawsuit was filed, to install a deep injection well down which to send the treated waste water.
It’s documented that Monroe County and the BOCCS’ refusal to spend the infrastructure sales tax monies on the traffic bearing lids and Electricity to run their turd grinders like they did on Grassy Key, putting their pumps in the FDOT row and not extorting private property easements. The FKAA is doing this Easement Extortion under the direct orders of Monroe County and the BOCC as the FKAA is their Contractor and is required to follow their directions.
People are afraid to say no, like a tourist facing an armed robber demanding her purse. They have seen how the law does not apply to FKAA. The DEP- supposed enforcers of environmental regulations- has aided and abetted FKAA’s lawlessness and even testified in court that the same rules that applied to Marathon or Charlotte County do not apply to the Cudjoe Regional. The worthless Florida Attorney General claims no jurisdiction, as does the useless Chief Inspector General. The police will not help because they are on the payroll of the perpetrators. And some of them are also helpless victims. Grinder pump victims have been threatened with loss of their homes if they do not obey FKAA’s illegal demands. The people making the stupid decisions will not rue anything. They will be gone, leaving destruction in their wake, and taking their big carpet bags of money with them. The fact remains that fraud and extortion are being implemented by these government officials. The FKAA Board is not elected, in spite of public referendum demanding elections. None of this is government by the people and it is certainly not for the people. It would appear that there has been a quiet coup and our republic is gone. But the party is not over yet, and right now about 9,000 customers are united in feeling extorted by sewer billing before sewage is being collected. That is a frighteningly big mob if they decide to be one. I would not want to be one of those arrogants thumbing my nose at the mob. The law would be well advised to responsibly deal with the few perpetrators instead of the many angry victims.