1 DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS
DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION, STATE OF FLORIDA
2
3
CASE NOS. 92-3038
4 92-3039
92-3040
5
SUGAR CANE GROWERS COOPERATIVE OF )
6 FLORIDA, et al., )
)
7 Petitioners, )
)
8 v. )
)
9 SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT )
DISTRICT, )
10 Respondent, )
)
11 and )
)
12 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al )
)
13 Intervenors. )
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - x
14
15 One Clearlake Center
West Palm Beach, Florida
16 February 16, 1993
9:00 a.m.
17
DEPOSITION OF DOCTOR DAVID ANDERSON
18
19 Taken before JACKIE JOHNSON, Professional
20 Reporter and Notary Public in and for the State of
21 Florida at Large, pursuant to Notice of Taking
22 Deposition filed in the above cause.
23 - - - - - - -
24
25
Page 1
1 APPEARANCES
2
ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONERS
3
PEEPLES, EARL & BLANK
4 One Biscayne Tower, Suite 3636
Two South Biscayne Boulevard
5 Miami, Florida 33131
BY: Jonathan L. Gaines, ESQ.
6
ON BEHALF OF THE INTERVENORS UNITED STATES
7
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
8 P.O. Box 663
Washington, D.C. 20044
9 BY: Geoffrey Garver, ESQ.
10 ON BEHALF OF THE INTERVENORS SFWMD
11 POPHAM HAIK
100 S.E. Second Street
12 P.O. Box 019101
Miami, Florida 33131
13 BY: Patrick S. Cousins
14
15
16 EXHIBITS
NUMBER PAGE
17 1 21
2 154
18 3 155
4 178
19 5 179
20
Page 2
1 Thereupon --
2 DOCTOR DAVID ANDERSON,
3 was called as a witness and, having been first duly
4 sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
5 DIRECT EXAMINATION
6 BY MR. GARVER:
7 Q. Please state your name and address.
8 A. David Anderson. I live at 700 Saganow
9 Avenue, Clewiston, Florida.
10 MR. GARVER: Doctor Anderson, my name is
11 Geoff Garver. I am an attorney with the United
12 States in these administrative proceedings, and
13 you have been designated as an expert witness by
14 the Florida Sugar Cane League, U.S. Sugar
15 Corporation and New Hope South on alternatives
16 to storm water treatment areas, water quality,
17 soil chemistry and chemical treatment of
18 phosphorus; is that consistent with your
19 understanding?
20 THE WITNESS: Yes.
21 MR. GARVER: Your lawyer has indicated to
22 me that your testimony will be primarily limited
23 to chemical treatment as an alternative to storm
24 water treatment areas; is that correct?
25 THE WITNESS: Well, as far as I have been
Page 3
1 asked so far, that's all I know of that's going
2 to be asked, that's correct.
3 BY MR. GARVER:
4 Q. Other than chemical treatment as a means
5 for removing phosphorus from water, are there any
6 other areas as to which you anticipate providing
7 testimony in these proceedings?
8 A. It's hard to tell.
9 My experience is fairly broad working with
10 soil remediation techniques, also, in the dairy soils
11 and dairy areas up north of the lake.
12 Q. Do you anticipate providing testimony with
13 regards to soil remediation techniques as applied to
14 soils in the Everglades Agriculture Area?
15 A. That's correct.
16 My field of endeavor is, I am so-called --
17 at least I have no anticipation for this. I expect
18 to be, I guess, giving testimony regarding the
19 chemical treatment of waters, but should I be called
20 upon, I suppose I will.
21 MR. GAINES: Geoff, maybe I should just
22 state what I told you before the depo.
23 For the Record, there's some other subject
24 matters listed in the witness disclosure besides
25 chemical treatment, and I was working to see if
Page 4
1 that could be eliminated or not, and the
2 decision that we came to is that since those are
3 all tied to the chemical treatment area anyway,
4 we weren't comfortable eliminating any of those
5 areas, but we think his primary focus is his
6 work he is doing on chemical treatment.
7 BY MR. GARVER:
8 Q. Doctor Anderson, have you ever been deposed
9 before?
10 A. No, I have not.
11 Q. Have you ever given sworn testimony before
12 in a legal proceeding?
13 A. No, I have not.
14 Q. Have you ever served as an expert
15 consultant in a legal proceeding?
16 A. No.
17 MR. GARVER: I will just briefly explain
18 what goes on here. Then I will be asking you a
19 series of questions related to your knowledge
20 and expert opinions relating to matters that are
21 at issue in this proceeding.
22 You should give me your complete and honest
23 answers to my questions, and you must answer my
24 questions, unless your attorney instructs you
25 not to.
Page 5
1 If I ask a question that you don't
2 understand or I phrase something in a way that
3 you don't understand, which given the nature of
4 the issues here, is not at all unprobable,
5 please let me know, and I will try to rephrase
6 the question.
7 If at any time you'd like to take a break,
8 just let me know, and we will just take a little
9 breather and get back on track then.
10 The first thing I'd like to do is just
11 review some of the documents we asked for in the
12 deposition notice.
13 BY MR. GARVER:
14 Q. Did you read the deposition notice for this
15 deposition?
16 A. I sure did.
17 Q. I believe the last question I asked you was
18 whether you have read the deposition notice for this
19 deposition, and you said that you had, right?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. I just want to go through the categories of
22 documents we asked for and just have you tell me
23 generally what documents you have produced responsive
24 to each of those categories.
25 The first category was any and all
Page 6
1 documents that you created or relied upon in
2 preparing, formulating, developing, authoring,
3 co-authoring, reviewing or organizing anticipated
4 expert testimony in this action, including any such
5 documents relating to any work in progress.
6 Can you tell me generally what you produced
7 under that category.
8 A. Well, basically you already have all the
9 information based upon your document. I didn't go to
10 any extra work to give anybody any extra documents
11 other than what John had given you, I guess that has
12 to do with the research documents, reports, from this
13 last year.
14 Q. Research reports relating to chemical
15 treatment?
16 A. Chemical treatment.
17 You have a listing of all the other
18 literature that I have been involved with writing.
19 So I didn't supply any other information other than
20 what was in the depo.
21 MR. GAINES: Maybe I can help. I think
22 what he is saying is he hasn't created any
23 documents specifically for his testimony in this
24 case, and I think what you're asking him to do
25 is categorize the documents that we have
Page 7
1 provided into these various categories; is that
2 right?
3 MR. GARVER: Right.
4 If you haven't created or relied upon a
5 document, then I am not -- these lists weren't
6 asking you to create anything. They were just
7 asking what you had created or relied on and
8 then what you had turned over to us through your
9 attorney.
10 BY MR. GARVER:
11 Q. I understand the first category you have
12 indicated that you have turned over some research
13 reports that you prepared during the last year
14 relating to chemical treatment processes; is that
15 correct.
16 A. That's correct.
17 Q. I have three such reports, one from May
18 1992, one from August 1992 and one from November
19 1992.
20 A. That would be the primary three, that's
21 correct.
22 Q. The second category is any and all
23 documents that you created or relied upon in
24 preparing, formulating, developing, authoring,
25 co-authoring, reviewing or organizing anticipated
Page 8
1 expert testimony relating to alternatives proposed in
2 the Everglades SWIM Plan.
3 A. I did not go to any effort of preparing at
4 all for this testimony for being an expert witness;
5 is that what you're asking?
6 Did I create anything for this period of
7 time for anticipating expert testimony? No, I did
8 not.
9 Q. Well, you have been listed as an expert
10 witness who is anticipated to testify at the final
11 hearing in this proceeding; is that correct?
12 A. I believe so.
13 MR. GAINES: Let me just -- I don't want to
14 interrupt.
15 THE WITNESS: I'm a little unclear about
16 your questions.
17 MR. GAINES: I think one of the problems
18 here is that I am not so sure that his documents
19 can be clearly compartmentalized by these
20 categories the way they are in this depo notice.
21 For example, three reports that he just
22 mentioned from May, August and November of '92
23 probably have some relationship to four or five
24 of these categories. But I think, again, Doctor
25 Anderson what he is just asking you is you have
Page 9
1 given us a stack of documents, and really that
2 was done through our office, but you're asking
3 him to say which documents relate to which
4 categories, is that right; is that what you're
5 trying to get him to tell you?
6 MR. GARVER: Yes.
7 THE WITNESS: Maybe you ought to outline
8 the categories you're interested in.
9 MR. GARVER: Well, I did that in this
10 deposition notice. That's why I am going
11 through here. There may be some other
12 terminology in here that's confusing to you.
13 MR. COUSINS: What if we give him the
14 documents and have him take a few minutes to
15 figure out where they all go.
16 THE WITNESS: I have been involved in such
17 a broad range of activities over the past years,
18 that it's difficult for me to really pinpoint
19 exactly what you're talking about, unless you
20 specifically point to a document.
21 BY MR. GARVER:
22 Q. After you read this or were given this
23 deposition notice, did you then give documents to the
24 attorneys?
25 A. I was called in, and in the case of the
Page 10
1 three documents that you were asked about or say that
2 you have, May, August and November, I actually did
3 not have my original copies. So he got those from
4 other originals and got copies. Everything else was
5 not asked for. I don't think anything else was asked
6 for, 'cause they had already -- they had these
7 documents already in their possession.
8 If you want to go back to trying to
9 categorize.
10 As I read this in here relating to
11 alternatives, what documents would be related to the
12 STA's; is that correct?
13 Q. Right.
14 A. I believe those three research documents
15 would be related to the STA alternatives. There's
16 another document that's in international print right
17 now in Journal Science regarding phosphorus
18 mineralization would be another one. There's some
19 other documents also related to South Florida Water
20 Management's contract that we did in 1988, '89 and
21 '90. Report 4.3.1.2.3 regarding the use of soil
22 amendments to reduce phosphorus mobility and
23 transport in soils ordered with animal waste. That's
24 the ones in Lake Okeechobee.
25 There were a number of other documents that
Page 11
1 were published in Southeast Dairy Review on best
2 management practices on reducing, I guess, storm
3 water drainage and runoff, and I believe there's two
4 articles related to that. Those should be listed in
5 my publication listing under contracts and
6 publications.
7 Q. In the report you did on soil amendments in
8 Lake Okeechobee, how does that relate to alternatives
9 to storm water treatment areas?
10 A. There's several things we did. I'd say
11 another document would have been probably a thesis by
12 Orlando Diaz. I have done a number of things since
13 that period of time related to phosphorus retention
14 under modification of soil in the EAA, and we have
15 seen that especially related to the influence of the
16 bed rock and the carbonates, that this has a very
17 positive influence of retaining phosphates.
18 In our work in Okeechobee, we looked at
19 various chemical alternatives to amend those soils in
20 order to slow down the phosphorus coming off the
21 drainage waters.
22 So indirectly those soils can't be compared
23 to what's happening in the EAA, but directly the
24 chemisty and the principals are very similar and have
25 yet been applied, but should be in the future.
Page 12
1 Q. In the Lake Okeechobee soil amendment
2 situation, did that involve adding chemicals to the
3 soil itself?
4 A. Right, exactly.
5 We were interested in measuring the
6 drainage from those soils after they have been
7 chemically altered.
8 Q. And in the case of the chemical treatment
9 alternatives you have been investigating for the EAA
10 drainage waters, that involves adding similar
11 chemicals directly to the water; is that right?
12 A. Not similar chemicals, but just alterations
13 of the water chemistry in order to precipitate and
14 coagulate out minerals and nutrients.
15 Q. Is it then the same physical chemical
16 processes that are at work in the case of the soil
17 amendments in Lake Okeechobee soils and chemical
18 treatment water in the EAA drainage waters?
19 A. No. They are slightly different. You're
20 dealing with different processes that are occurring.
21 In the water, you're working with basically
22 waste water treatment type processes that are fairly
23 well known and delineated, with the exception that we
24 have very unusual waters, very unusual in the sense
25 of its chemical properties are very different from
Page 13
1 anywhere else in the country. The soil has a much
2 more dynamic environment, so to speak. It's got an
3 environmental, biological and chemical interactions
4 that are important. So that's just a little bit
5 different than the reactions that we're taking a look
6 at, waters which are very, very quick. Whereas in
7 the soil, it may take a period of a couple of months.
8 Q. What is unique about the water that you are
9 dealing with in the Everglades Agricultural Area?
10 A. Unique as to the rest of the world?
11 Q. Yes.
12 A. As to anywhere else in the world, we have
13 hardnesses that are extremely high. You have
14 dissolved carbon or organic materials, dissolved
15 organic carbons that are very high. Although
16 variable, the particulate phases in there can range
17 from very low to very high.
18 Just generally speaking, you have a
19 substance that can behave like a weak acid. This
20 water has a very high bufferihg capacity and,
21 frankly, from the experiences, both here in the
22 United States and in Europe, this makes it a very
23 difficult water for chemical treatment, very unique
24 in a sense, because it's from an organic soil.
25 Q. In what respect do the properties of the
Page 14
1 EAA drainage water make it difficult to treat?
2 A. I can't answer that without getting into
3 some of the direct reasons why we're treating it.
4 Your chemical treatment of water is done to
5 precipitate soluble compounds that are in the water.
6 Those soluble compounds, which would include
7 phosphorus, is probably a secondary reaction of the
8 process. The primary reaction will be the conversion
9 of the dosing chemical into an insoluble form which
10 reacts with the soluble carbon and precipitates the
11 carbon materials out, which also then precipitates
12 out or retains or absorbs also the phosphorus and
13 other elements.
14 Chemical dosing is really something which
15 phosphorus is just one of those things that are
16 captured by it. It wasn't specifically keynoted for
17 its reaction just for phosphorus.
18 What we are looking at is, basically, iron
19 compounds at this point and the formation of iron
20 oxides which are insoluable. They have a charge.
21 Because they have a charge, they coagulate.
22 As time progresses in that coagulation
23 process, the materials are very active in the water,
24 and it absorbs phosphorus, absorbs other metals. If
25 there are heavy metals in the water, the metals would
Page 15
1 be absorbed. Basically, everything is taken out,
2 including the color that is seen in the water.
3 From the start, you have a material that
4 looks very colored, like a weak tea, and when we
5 finish, the desirable end product of the water, it's
6 fairly clear water. Those constituents in there make
7 it unique, because it consumes those chemicals in a
8 high rate.
9 If we had lower carbons, you would have
10 less chemicals used. If you had lower hardnesses,
11 you'd have better control over the coagulation
12 process. So these properties make it unique in terms
13 of experience elsewhere in the country.
14 Q. Then is it a fact that generally you would
15 have to use a lot of treatment chemicals, that makes
16 this water difficult to treat?
17 A. Makes it difficult to treat because it
18 consumes more chemical than is traditionally what
19 would be in New York or let's say in good water
20 quality, treating of good water quality.
21 This water quality, naturally, is of a
22 different nature. So it consumes more chemical, and
23 the variability of the water quality changes
24 throughout the year.
25 I mean, we have a semi-tropical climate,
Page 16
1 which means during the Summer, temperatures increase.
2 You have more biological activities during the Summer
3 than in the Winter. You have diurnal fluctuations
4 that also influences the ability to treat these
5 waters, as compared to something that might have just
6 a couple of biological peaks. We have many of them
7 that occur throughout the year.
8 Q. Going back to the document list here.
9 I think so far what we have covered are the
10 research reports that you provided, the 1992 research
11 reports. You have also identified some publications.
12 In connection with work that will
13 potentially relate to your expert testimony, have you
14 produced any raw data?
15 A. You mean anything scientific is raw data?
16 What precisely do you mean?
17 My whole life is -- in my professional
18 life, I produce raw data. I mean, what exactly do
19 you mean?
20 Q. In performing investigations of the
21 applicability of chemical treatment to remove
22 phosphorus, specifically in looking at chemical
23 treatment as an alternatives to STA's, have you
24 produced any raw data?
25 A. Oh, certainly.
Page 17
1 Q. And have you made that available to your
2 attorney to turn over to us?
3 A. Yes. The Report 11-92 really is a
4 collection of all the data produced up to that point.
5 Q. Is the November 1992 report a synthesis of
6 that data?
7 A. It's a collection of all the data. Of
8 course, it's processed data, basically in charts and
9 tables, figures.
10 MR. COUSINS: I hate to interject.
11 Where is that one?
12 MR. GAINES: It's actually '92-11.
13 BY MR. GARVER:
14 Q. In doing your investigations of the
15 chemical treatment as an alternative to STA's, did
16 you generate any handwritten laboratory notes or
17 field notes?
18 A. Well, our entire laboratory is set up for
19 quality assurance and quality control, and every
20 sample that comes in is processed, is logged in, is
21 logged out. Every time we move a sample or change a
22 sample or do something to it, we have it logged.
23 Everything that comes in from the laboratory goes
24 directly onto a computer. So the answer would be
25 obviously yes. There's notes, both, computer form as
Page 18
1 well as controlled laboratory procedures that are in
2 the note form. All those are with the QAQC plan that
3 we established last year also with the project.
4 Q. Did you produce any of the computer files
5 or other compilations of data that you just described
6 to your attorneys to turn over to us?
7 A. No, I did not.
8 MR. GARVER: Mr. Gaines, I believe that
9 that information, those compilations of data
10 would be responsive to our document request.
11 MR. GAINES: What compilations are you
12 talking about specifically?
13 THE WITNESS: You sure you want them all?
14 MR. GAINES: I mean, I just want to
15 understand what it is you're looking for.
16 MR. GARVER: Computer compilations of data
17 used in investigations with any chemical
18 treatment. Whether or not we do want these at
19 this point, I can't say right now, but I would
20 identify those as responsive documents that have
21 not been produced.
22 MR. GAINES: Well, I don't know if those
23 are responsive or not, but let me know if you
24 are looking for them, and then I will get
25 together with him and see what's out there.
Page 19
1 THE WITNESS: There's certainly nothing
2 secretive that wants to be hidden, but there's a
3 lot of a background information.
4 BY MR. GARVER:
5 Q. What other kind of background information
6 is there?
7 A. Well, you're asking -- the reports consist
8 of all the data in a compiled format. So everything
9 that you see in that report is essentially the data
10 base. I am not sure exactly what you would want, but
11 if you want the whole nine yards, it would fill a few
12 boxes, perhaps.
13 MR. GARVER: We'll let you know about that.
14 I just want to figure out the universe of
15 documents.
16 THE WITNESS: I don't look forward to
17 gathering all that, either.
18 MR. GAINES: Just so I am clear, we're
19 talking about this Report 92-11 and the tables
20 and data that are reflected in here. You're
21 talking about the computer printouts that went
22 into putting these tables together?
23 MR. GARVER: Right, the raw data from which
24 those charts and graphs were generated.
25 MR. GARVER: I'd like to turn now to your
Page 20
1 resume, Doctor Anderson.
2 Can we get this marked as Doctor Anderson
3 1.
4 (The document referred to was
5 thereupon marked Anderson Exhibit
6 No. 1 for Identification.)
7 BY MR. GARVER:
8 Q. Doctor Anderson, I am handing you what's
9 been marked as Anderson Exhibit No. 1.
10 A. It is my resume.
11 Q. Is this your most recent resume?
12 A. Yes, it is.
13 Q. Is this a resume you recently updated?
14 A. I just keep a resume updated. I write a
15 lot of materials, and every time I complete
16 something, I just update it. It's just my working
17 file of what I do. It was not -- you know, this
18 resume wasn't prepared specifically for you, no.
19 This is something I have had for years.
20 Q. Can you briefly describe your educational
21 background?
22 A. Sure. I received my Ph.D. in Soil
23 Chemistry and Water Chemistry at the University of
24 Wisconsin, Madison 1981, my Masters degree in Soil
25 Science and Statistics from N.C. State University at
Page 21
1 Raleigh in 1978. I had a BS degree in Natural
2 Resources from the University of Wisconsin, actually,
3 at Stevens Point in 1973.
4 Q. Can you briefly describe to me the degree
5 requirements for a BS in natural resources?
6 A. I don't remember the specific requirements,
7 but a lot of chemistry science. It has to be a lot
8 of science, which includes the biological sciences
9 and chemistry. We covered in that degree forestry,
10 wildlife, water, soils, chemistry labs related to
11 each of those disciplines, humanities, social
12 sciences, psychology, English composition, ROTC, I
13 think, one year.
14 Q. And for your Masters in soil science and
15 statistics, what were the requirements that you had
16 to meet to obtain that degree?
17 A. There were so many credit hours for the
18 whole degree, but basically you have a fairly strong
19 emphasis in soil chemistry, chemistry, as well as
20 statistics. There's four or five different
21 statistics courses that you have to fulfill to go
22 through a minor in statistics.
23 Q. What courses that you took in obtaining
24 your Masters related to chemical treatment of
25 phosphorus as you are employing it?
Page 22
1 A. Not as phosphorus. My particular thesis
2 was regarding liming reactions of soils that were in
3 the mountain soils in North Carolina, and in that
4 line, I spent a lot of work in laboratories as well
5 as taking courses such as soil physics, soil
6 chemistry that related to that thesis and that area
7 of study.
8 Q. Can you describe to me in a little more
9 detail your thesis, your Masters thesis?
10 A. Sure.
11 You're referring to the thesis here?
12 Q. Yes.
13 A. We were looking at different factors, soil
14 chemical factors that actually affected the liming
15 requirements of soils that were originated in the
16 mountain areas of North Carolina. These are soils
17 that would be typical of soils in North Carolina,
18 Virginia, parts of Tennessee. We looked at how the
19 requirements were derived and what factors are
20 actually influencing the lime requirements. Lime
21 requirements meaning how much lime was required to
22 alter the PH, alter the soil chemistry of those
23 soils.
24 Q. What was the lime requirements for? I
25 mean, why would you be altering the PH or the
Page 23
1 chemistry of the soils?
2 A. In many of those areas, those soils are
3 very acid and very unsuitable for land development,
4 whether it be for forest production or whether it
5 would be tobacco or other crops like corn or cotton.
6 In some of those cases, some of those areas have very
7 documented forms of metals such as maganese, and
8 liming reduces those acidity products such that those
9 products can grow at a suitable rate and without any
10 toxicity.
11 In some of those cases, some of those soils
12 have been stripped because of erosion, and some soils
13 are very raw in acid, very difficult to retain, and
14 they use lime to remediate those soils.
15 Q. When you were obtaining your Masters, did
16 you take any or do any course work in wetlands
17 ecology?
18 A. No, I did not.
19 Q. Did you do any course work related to
20 wetlands water quality?
21 A. No, I did not.
22 Q. Did you do any course work, organize
23 research related to oligotrophic systems?
24 A. In my Masters, I did not.
25 Q. Did you do any course work related to
Page 24
1 phosphorus cycling?
2 A. In my Masters, actually the first year of
3 my Masters, I was in the Tropical Soils Program, and
4 at that time we were going to be doing our research
5 in Costa Rica and Turrialba, and the specific topic
6 was phosphorus and intercropping in that area in
7 Central America. That project was with USAID.
8 Support was dropped. There were some political
9 problems at the time, and at that moment, I switched
10 my Masters thesis to the one that I completed. So I
11 had to reverse my entire thesis. So I spent
12 approximately one year preparing for the Central
13 America research program, which was phosphorus and
14 intercropping. So, yes, I guess the answer would be
15 yes, and that's specifically what I did.
16 Q. What is phosphorus and intercropping?
17 A. Phosphorus fertilization of crops that were
18 growing simultaneously under a tropical environment.
19 Previous to my doing my Masters, I worked
20 in the Amazon Basin area which we looked at slash and
21 burn techniques in the Amazon. We were trying to
22 find ways of reducing the population or keeping the
23 population from cutting more forest down by keeping
24 them indignly local to the area that they had cleared
25 out.
Page 25
1 Under normal or natural conditions, after
2 three years of tropical climate, they have to move
3 into the forest, cut new forest down, because the
4 soils had been depleted because of high rainfall for
5 soil conditions. They can't grow good crops. They
6 can't survive. So they cut more down.
7 Our work in the Amazon was to specifically
8 research not only intercropping, but what techniques
9 that they could use to maintain that lands without
10 cutting down more forest. The work that was to be
11 done in Turrialba was to be done in the same type of
12 light, trying to look at the growth of several new
13 crops simultaneously under fertility regime, and my
14 particular area was to be working with phosphorus.
15 Q. In obtaining your Masters, did you do any
16 course work, organize, conduct any research relating
17 to chemical treatment of waste waters?
18 A. I did not.
19 My only experience up to that time on
20 wetlands was when I worked with the Soils Science
21 Department that year, previous to that, in the
22 Organic Tide Water Areas, and these are organic soils
23 located in Plymouth, North Carolina, Eastern North
24 Carolina.
25 Q. What time period are you referring to now?
Page 26
1 A. 1974, '75.
2 Q. This was prior to your returning back --
3 A. Back to school.
4 Q. Can you describe in more detail what work
5 you were conducting between completion of your
6 Bachelors and beginning your Masters work?
7 A. After I finished my Bachelors degree, I
8 went into U.S. Peace Corps and spent approximately
9 one year in Arequipa, Peru, which was working in the
10 soil and water laboratory, and there I was supposed
11 to teach soil and water techniques in the laboratory.
12 I also did some extension related activities of
13 promoting laboratories and the use of the
14 laboratories in Southern Peru, both on the coast and
15 in the interior.
16 After that, I joined N.C. State's team
17 working in the Amazon that following year. Returning
18 from Peace Corps, I worked one year at the Tide Water
19 Research Station as a research technician, and that
20 area is basically organic histosols, working on
21 development of those soils and those wetlands into
22 agriculture production areas before returning back to
23 my Masters.
24 Q. During the time you were with the Tide
25 Water Research Station --
Page 27
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. -- were you involved in chemical treatment
3 of drainage waters?
4 A. No, I wasn't.
5 Q. Can you describe to me the work you did in
6 order to obtain your Ph.D. at the University of
7 Wisconsin?
8 A. Sure.
9 I took numerous courses in the Chemistry
10 Department, soil chemistry, soil mineralogy, soil
11 fertility, the general requirements for that degree
12 in the Department of Soil Science as well as
13 fulfilled the requirements in the Department of Water
14 Science and Water Chemistry and Water Science.
15 My thesis was working at modeling phosphate
16 dissolution in soils, looking at rock phosphates from
17 different types of rock phosphates and modeling their
18 chemical reactions in the soil, developing a chemical
19 or excuse me an interactive computer model that
20 produced the solubility rates and dissolution rates
21 of rock phosphates in soil. So it was both a
22 computer based study as well as a greenhouse and
23 growth room studies looking at specific chemistry --
24 soil chemistry reactions to dissolution process.
25 Q. Did you have any teaching or research
Page 28
1 assistantships in obtaining your Ph.D.?
2 A. Yes. I taught a few semesters assisting as
3 a teaching professor while I was there. That's part
4 of the requirements of the university.
5 Q. In obtaining your Ph.D., did you do any
6 course work or research related to wetlands ecology?
7 A. Not specifically, other than what was in
8 course work that I covered, both, in the Soils
9 Department as well as in the Water Science
10 Department, just covering what studies had been done
11 in the past as a student. I didn't do any research
12 in wetlands ecology.
13 Q. What types of studies relating to wetlands
14 ecology were involved in the course that you just
15 described?
16 A. Well, in the study of water chemistry, you
17 have to study certain case histories, whether it be
18 different lakes have been treated or ecologically
19 studied, and in that course work we were studying
20 under people who are currently doing that type of
21 work. So obviously we knew what they were doing.
22 They informed us what their background was
23 and how it related to the course work, but that's
24 really the limit of my ecological training, other
25 than in my BS training in which we did water surveys
Page 29
1 and ecological surveys for my bachelors degree. We
2 did that during a summer course that we had to take
3 mandatory at a forestry camp. We had to enter the
4 forestry camp for the Summer. At that time we did
5 the biological field studies.
6 Q. Did any of the course work you did in
7 obtaining your Ph.D. relate to the Everglades?
8 A. My Ph.D.?
9 Q. Yes.
10 A. No.
11 Q. Did any of the course work you did in
12 obtaining your Bachelors or Masters degrees relate to
13 the Everglades?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Did you do any course work or research in
16 obtaining your Ph.D. related to chemical treatment of
17 waste waters, including agriculture drainage waters?
18 A. Soil or water remediation, no.
19 Q. What did you do after obtaining your Ph.D.?
20 A. Took a job with USDA in the ARS, worked one
21 year as a post-doc at Auburn University.
22 Q. What is the ARS?
23 A. Agriculture Research Service with the
24 U.S. Department of Agricultural, and my position was
25 a soil chemist.
Page 30
1 Q. And after working at Auburn University,
2 what did you do?
3 A. Took a job with the University of Florida
4 in my current position.
5 Q. What is your current position?
6 A. My current position is located -- I work at
7 the Everglades Research and Education Center. I am a
8 soil water chemist working also with sugar cane
9 nutrition, working with the industry on agricultural
10 crops as well as the work on issues that relate
11 therein. There's a fairly broad mission of
12 responsibilities associated with each of those
13 positions.
14 I have been with the University of Florida
15 for 11 years, initially, by doing a lot of studies
16 regarding fertilizer requirements with sugar cane
17 production, working with some other crops, biomass
18 crops for alcohol production as well. Initially, I
19 worked pretty strongly with the fertilizer industry,
20 fertilizer and chemical industries during that period
21 of time in the early years. I have continued to work
22 with those studies, published a lot of different
23 works on space and soils chemistry as well as soil
24 fertility, both being applied in basic nature.
25 Q. What exactly is the Everglades Research and
Page 31
1 Education Center?
2 A. It's one of the -- I am not sure exactly
3 how many we have in the state. I think there's 15
4 centers in the State of Florida that belong to the
5 Institute of Food and Agricultural Science called
6 IFAS, but the University of Florida, it's one of the
7 stations in the state.
8 We have, I guess, on record 19
9 Ph.D. positions that are designated for that station
10 with, I think, close to 65 support personnel there.
11 That station was one of the first stations in
12 Florida. I think that was established in 1918 or
13 1922. So it's been in that area or that region for a
14 long time.
15 Q. And how is the EREC; is that how it's
16 referred to?
17 A. Uh-huh.
18 Q. How is the EREC funded?
19 A. State of Florida with the budget
20 constraints that we have had, as has everybody,
21 including yourselves. I am sure we have depended
22 fairly heavily on getting support from industry as
23 well as from government outside agencies through
24 research grants.
25 Q. What industries have provided research
Page 32
1 grants?
2 A. Besides the Florida Sugar Cane League, we
3 have got vegetable industry people who are vegetable
4 producers that give money, chemical industry,
5 fertilizer industry, South Florida Water Management
6 District, and there are probably other grants
7 associated with the Caribbean Initiative. I mean,
8 over the year, it's pretty broad based, both from
9 industry and from government.
10 Q. Do you have any teaching responsibilities
11 in your position at EREC?
12 A. No, I have not.
13 Q. Have you ever had any teaching
14 responsibilities?
15 A. No.
16 This is a 100-percent research position.
17 Q. Do you work with degree candidates?
18 A. I have been associated with several, but my
19 official students, I only had one student in 11
20 years. His name was Orlando Diaz.
21 Q. Were you his main professor, so to speak,
22 in getting him to complete his degree requirements?
23 A. There had to be two professors. I was one
24 of them. The other one was in Gainesville. In order
25 to complete his degree, he had to have a professor up
Page 33
1 in Gainesville. So there were two of us, one down
2 here, one up at the Gainesville campus.
3 Q. Has Mr. Diaz obtained his Ph.D.?
4 A. Yes, he has.
5 Q. In your work at EREC, have you been
6 involved in any work relating to treatment of
7 agricultural drainage waters?
8 A. Yes, I have.
9 Q. And what work have you done in that area?
10 A. The work that was, I guess, essentially
11 started in 1991, December of 1991, shown in the
12 report of May of '92, also shown in the report of
13 August and November of '92.
14 Q. And that's work relating to chemical
15 treatment of agricultural drainage waters?
16 A. Directly the chemical treatment of
17 agricultural drainage waters.
18 Q. Prior to the work you commenced in December
19 1991, have you done any other work relating to
20 treatment of agricultural drainage waters?
21 A. I have been associated in working as
22 project leader for soil remediation with the soil
23 aspects with the District grants, taking a look at
24 the transport of phosphorus in the Okeechobee
25 Drainage Basin which is in Okeechobee County.
Page 34
1 There are a number of my colleagues who are
2 involved in similar locations, but we were looking at
3 the soil drainage waters and reactions after we had
4 remediated those soils. We have looked at drainage
5 waters off of those. So we had done column studies
6 off of those and been fairly successful at it.
7 I just might add, the other study was a
8 grant, also, with DER that I had last year, and that
9 was related to the treatment of dairy soils that were
10 heavily loaded with manure with gypsum stack
11 material, which is called desulphurization gympsum
12 that was in conjunction with Tampa Electric
13 Authority.
14 MR. COUSINS: Do you have a paper?
15 THE WITNESS: We have got a paper regarding
16 that work in review right now. It's Number 6 on
17 Page 10, Nutrient Release and Bacterial
18 Enumeration in Soil After Gypsum Application.
19 BY MR. GARVER:
20 Q. Did I understand you correctly that that's
21 been primarily a laboratory research operation?
22 A. Yes, it was.
23 Some of the work we had done regarding
24 gypsum materials was also done with the District
25 project, and with that District project, we had done
Page 35
1 both laboratory and some field studies, and some of
2 the data that we found that was very favorable
3 regarding gypsum treatment at that time we enumerated
4 into this study and did it a second, third or fourth
5 time. So this was under DER grant.
6 Q. When you say the District study, that was
7 the study related to soil amendments in Lake
8 Okeechobee soils?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. During the time you have been at the EREC,
11 have you conducted any research or investigations in
12 the Water Conversation Areas themselves?
13 A. Such as best management practices, by
14 chance? What exactly do you mean?
15 MR. GAINES: He is asking in the WCA's, not
16 in the EAA.
17 BY MR. GARVER:
18 Q. In the Water Conservation Areas?
19 A. No, we have not.
20 We have attempted to do some studies in the
21 Everglades National Park last year, but we could
22 never get the funds for the permission to work in the
23 Park. That was in conjunction with the Soil
24 Conservation Service. The last Soil survey of the
25 Park was done, I think, in the 1920's by Mary Collins
Page 36
1 out of Gainesville, and the SCS personnel down here
2 have an interest in renewing those studies in order
3 to establish some baselines which appear not to be
4 there.
5 Q. What is SCS?
6 A. Soil Conservation Service.
7 Q. Are you referring to --
8 A. I would say we were working through the
9 State Conservationist, would be Wade Hurt in
10 Gainesville.
11 Q. Is that H-U-R-T?
12 A. H-U-R-T, yes, that's correct, and Doctor
13 Mary Collins in Gainesville.
14 Q. Were there any federal employees involved
15 in that project?
16 A. No.
17 We just tried to pursue it trying to do
18 some of the work down there because of our interest
19 in the EAA, and we talked to some of the personnel
20 people in the Everglades National Park about their
21 interest, and they appeared -- basically, they had a
22 little interest in participating, but we could never
23 find the grant funds to proceed with it.
24 Q. Who at Everglades National Park did you
25 discuss this project with?
Page 37
1 A. Michael Zukoff.
2 We went so far as getting SCS to submit to
3 us a proposal of the cost incurred if they would
4 participate. So we went so far as getting some
5 preliminary proposals together.
6 Q. Why were you interested in updating the
7 soil survey in Everglades National Park?
8 A. Many of the soils in the Park are related
9 to soils in the Everglades Agricultural Area, and I
10 have been interested in classification and the nature
11 of those soils, basically, in South Florida. So I
12 have been involved for the last 11 some years in
13 these soils. We have an interest in them.
14 Q. Was there any industry involvement in that
15 proposal?
16 A. No, there was not. This was an academic
17 venture for our own sake.
18 Q. And I believe you stated you couldn't get
19 permission to conduct that research; is that correct?
20 A. It wasn't so much the permission.
21 In order to do work in the Everglades
22 National Park, particularly in the interior, you must
23 involve helicopters, the right time of the year, just
24 to get into the areas that you have to get into. In
25 order to do that, you have to have funding to support
Page 38
1 both the personnel in the park as well as the SCS
2 personnel.
3 The Soil Conversation Service cannot just
4 randomly do studies without additional or outside
5 support. So it was necessary to get grant funds.
6 Q. I still don't understand how permission
7 from and from whom was involved in that project?
8 A. Permission probably would have come from
9 Mike Zukoff or whoever is in charge at Everglades
10 National Park and, partially, whether or not they are
11 interested in pursuing those activities.
12 We never had any clearcut message from Mike
13 whether or not he was interested or not. It was kind
14 of a reserved, well, maybe, combined with the fact
15 that we couldn't get the full grant support. That
16 sort of settled our abilities of getting into the
17 Park and doing the work.
18 Q. Were you ever denied permission from Mike
19 Zukoff or anyone else at the Park to do the research?
20 A. No, not at all. I have always found him
21 very cooperative. I have never had any problems with
22 him.
23 MR. GARVER: Mr. Gaines, there are several
24 publications, and I am finally getting back to
25 you on this, that were listed in Doctor
Page 39
1 Anderson's resume that we would like copies of.
2 MR. GAINES: Okay.
3 MR. GARVER: And we can do that in a break,
4 if you'd like. We can go over those. So we
5 don't have to do that on the Record.
6 THE WITNESS: Tell me --
7 MR. GAINES: Well, obviously we are not
8 going to have those copies for you today.
9 MR. GARVER: Sure.
10 MR. GAINES: When would you want to obtain
11 the copies? Do you know if you're going to be
12 going into tomorrow or not? Is that what you
13 had in mind, to try to get him over and just to
14 get them after the deposition or what?
15 MR. GARVER: Yeah. At this point, I wasn't
16 asking for them necessarily at the conclusion of
17 the depo.
18 MR. GAINES: Well, tell us which ones you
19 would like, and I don't know if they are all
20 available, if he has copies of everything or
21 not. Some of them are out of print. But
22 whatever we have --
23 MR. GARVER: I think just for time sake,
24 let's do it off the Record.
25 MR. GAINES: Okay.
Page 40
1 BY MR. GARVER:
2 Q. Referring back to your resume, Doctor
3 Anderson, on Page 2 under Duties and Responsibilities
4 of your work at the EREC.
5 I notice you have duties and
6 responsibilities in the area of the environmental
7 improvement. Can you describe what those duties and
8 responsibilities are?
9 A. The reason why we have this station is
10 basically to serve the area in whether it be
11 production area, areas of production that are needed
12 to be done or agriculture production or environmental
13 problems that are impacting an area. It's basically
14 our responsibility to get involved in those type of
15 studies and that kind of work. That experiment
16 station really exists as a mission from the State of
17 Florida to the region. It's not specifically to
18 serve necessarily sugar cane interests, but to serve
19 the whole area, whatever those interests might be,
20 and that includes environmental improvement. I am
21 obviously doing some environmental work in
22 accomplishing those duties.
23 Q. Specifically what environmental work are
24 you doing?
25 A. We have been working on the effects of
Page 41
1 water table, not specifically in the EAA, but outside
2 the EAA in Hendry County taking a look at the effects
3 of water table on water quality, the effects of water
4 table on sugar cane production and other parameters.
5 Also, as an interest in the past -- let me
6 just get myself together here, specifically myself.
7 Besides some water remediation work I have
8 been doing, I have also been involved with optimizing
9 fertilizer materials to the sugar cane crop, and
10 that, in particular, is optimizing their most
11 sufficient usage as that fits in as the best
12 management practices. Both the industry and the
13 government are very concerned about people not over
14 fertilizing and pushing nutrients into drainage
15 waters. That's basically it.
16 Q. What specifically have you done in
17 connection with the optimization of fertilization
18 requirements?
19 A. When I first arrived here 11 years ago, I
20 initiated phosphorus studies looking at fertilizer
21 phosphorus application to the sugar cane crop to try
22 to determine their optimum levels and the uses of
23 them based on soil tests, monitoring, tissue plant,
24 tissue monitoring and yield measurements, and those
25 have continued for the past ten years. We have done
Page 42
1 quite a few studies. I can't tell you exact numbers
2 of sites, but we probably have maybe 60 to 70 site
3 years of data collected on that.
4 Currently, I have a man on sabbatical from
5 Brazil that is focusing particularly on that issue,
6 and his job this year will be to collectively gather
7 that data base together and determine the optimum
8 usage of phosphorus fertilizer on sugar cane.
9 Q. To date, have you made any recommendations,
10 published any recommendations regarding optimum
11 phosphorus fertilization?
12 A. No.
13 Of course we have, of course, reported in
14 some of our annual meetings some of our results in
15 the past years, and they vary based on those site
16 specific activities, but we have not published a
17 recommendation or revision of the current
18 recommendation.
19 I have been involved in development of a
20 new chemistry chemical test on soils on acid
21 extraction that we're hoping will do a better job
22 than the past historical procedures have done, but up
23 to this time, no recommendations have been made until
24 we finalize our data base and include it.
25 I think what you're going to find out is
Page 43
1 IFAS or the University of Florida will revise any
2 recommendation with the data substantiated revision,
3 and we are trying to establish some strict guidelines
4 for that so that we don't have individuals making
5 their own recommendations apart from what is the
6 University or IFAS' recommendation.
7 In this last year, we have made some
8 attempts or the University of Florida has made some
9 attempts to unify that process, and we will probably
10 follow the same process.
11 Q. What is the current recommendation relating
12 to phosphorus fertilization?
13 A. It depends on a soil test that they use as
14 a tool to tell them basically how much phosphorus is
15 existing in the fertility of that soil is existing at
16 the time.
17 Actually, the recommendations can be from
18 zero to seventy pounds of P205 per acre. That would
19 be on a plant crop of sugar cane. The routine crop
20 is generally a standard 40 pounds of P205 per acres
21 is taken as the recommendation that's in the EAA.
22 The source of materials generally is using triple
23 super phosphate. That's basically the phosphorus
24 material that is used as the source material.
25 Q. You stated you're doing work now relating
Page 44
1 to updated soil tests to be used in conjunction with
2 the phosphorus fertilization?
3 A. Yes, that's correct.
4 Q. What were the limitations I believe you
5 mentioned earlier regarding existing soil tests?
6 A. Well, initially, historically we have to go
7 back to historical record, particularly for
8 phosphorus. They used a water retractable phosphorus
9 for that test. That test was generally correlated to
10 vegetable crops which grow on a very short term. The
11 water extraction is very variable. You could get --
12 let's give it a soil test unit of two coming out of a
13 test, just for sake of discussion.
14 You could take two different soil samples,
15 both having a value of two coming out of that lab,
16 but if you take a look at a more rigorous extraction
17 technique for phosphorus, one you might find equal to
18 ten and the other equal to 120. Obviously, the one
19 that extracts 120, there's more in the bank than is
20 recognized by the water extractable phosphorus.
21 When I first arrived probably a year after
22 I started working at the center, I started working on
23 other extraction techniques to recognize and to be
24 able to help our calibration of fertilizer of
25 nutrients in that region. That water extractable
Page 45
1 phosphorus test appears to be good with some
2 vegetable crops. But again on a long-term crop, such
3 as sugar cane which utilizes nutrients all year long,
4 it appears to be a very poor indicator for fertilizer
5 needs. In fact, the past published recommendations,
6 using their techniques, probably the science behind
7 it is not very strong, not strongly supporting its
8 recommendation for correlations statistically.
9 I have been working for the last years to
10 hopefully improve that correlation and that ability
11 of predicting true needs using other extraction
12 techniques.
13 Q. How does the lack of a reliable soil test
14 for sugar cane affect the use of phosphorus
15 fertilizers on sugar cane?
16 A. Well, if you were a farmer, if you were a
17 farmer and trying to manage 1000 acres, you would
18 want to be able to know how to have a uniform crop.
19 You would want to produce a uniform crop, and if you
20 did not get the right fertilizer recommendations
21 based on that soil test because it was unreliable,
22 you may have a very irregular production over those
23 thousand acres which would be very difficult for you
24 as a manager of that acreage to manage well and be
25 able to understand what was happening either to
Page 46
1 adjust, increase or decrease the fertilizer amounts.
2 Under fertilizing is not good, and
3 obviously over fertilizing will not be good.
4 Fertilization depends on both the quality of the crop
5 and the quantity of the crop produced, and you have
6 to optimize those levels.
7 So the broad based objective of this would
8 be obviously to have a technique that you could use
9 as a tool that would be very helpful instead of
10 useless.
11 Q. Again, returning back to your resume under
12 your duties and responsibilities, what duties and
13 responsibilities do you have with regard to
14 conservation of organic/mineral soils?
15 A. We have studies that, I think, go back to
16 1948 to more recently in 1988 that have studied the
17 fact of subsidence oxidation of those soils as being
18 an important criteria. Basically, those studies took
19 place at that experiment stations. So the
20 conservation of these soils, whether it be to modify
21 the water table or to be conscious of what other
22 techniques that need to be followed through
23 environmental protection of that area is our
24 responsibility to perform research.
25 In the past years, we have collaberated
Page 47
1 with both -- not myself necessarily -- but other
2 people on that station have collaberated with the
3 Soil Conservation Service. We have done studies
4 regarding the disappearance or the subsidence of
5 these soils over the past 50 years, and that's pretty
6 much -- again, we exist at that station to serve that
7 area and not to be blind about the conditions, but to
8 treat them in a scientific manner when we're called
9 upon.
10 Many times we're called on by press or
11 visitors or people, and we naturally know about the
12 process and discuss it and know about it.
13 Q. What is your understanding of what causes
14 subsidence in soils in the EAA?
15 A. Well, you have a soil that was developed
16 basically underwater without oxygen. The accumulated --
17 those materials accumulated without oxygen. When the
18 State of Florida decided, I think it was in 1902, to
19 start draining some of these soils around the lake,
20 and later on the Federal Government in the '40's and
21 early '50's completed those plans, basically those
22 plans were done to protect the region from floods,
23 hurricanes that are associated with those floods as
24 well as shortage of water to control water both from
25 flooding and from drought.
Page 48
1 The consequence of drainage subsidence and
2 protecting area, which means protecting the coastal
3 areas by giving them enough water use because of a
4 growing population or prospecting water tables in the
5 park result really in the drainage of these whole
6 areas resulting in oxygen getting into those soils,
7 which are basically all organic in nature to start
8 oxidizing, and that oxidation process results in a
9 slow depletion of the material.
10 The only way to reverse that, of course, is
11 to take every canal that drains in South Florida and
12 block it up and reflood the whole area. That would
13 be the only way, should you have enough water to do
14 it. But typically, South Florida is plagued by both
15 extremes in water and drought, which you see the
16 result of fires nearly every Spring. So subsidence
17 is a result of drainage.
18 Q. So the only way to stop subsidence would be
19 to stop up all the canals and take out all the water?
20 A. Completely take every canal apart and stop
21 it up. That would include Port Saint Lucie Canal,
22 which is a shipping lane, as well as going out to the
23 Calooshatchee, because a major amount of natural
24 drainage, natural seepage of water is irreverently
25 changed as a result of people being in South Florida.
Page 49
1 It's my opinion that nothing could be done to stop
2 this process.
3 You know, certainly in 200 years we can
4 have a crop of people in South Florida, a lot more
5 than we have now, which will demand water, and one of
6 the key problems of keeping water probably now in the
7 EAA is the fact that the usage of ground water on the
8 coast essentially allows saltwater intrusion also to
9 infect this area. So there has got to be a hydraulic
10 buffer now of water, which means the only way we can
11 do that is to divert water from the interior to
12 conservation areas or lakes like this and keep a
13 hydraulic head of water stopping the saltwater
14 intrusion. Saltwater intrusion don't reserve itself.
15 Once it's intruded into an aquifer, it's permanent.
16 So in my opinion, probably subsidence is
17 something that we really can't do too much to change
18 it right now.
19 Q. Can you describe to me, in general, and
20 then in more detail, the Lake Okeechobee Soil
21 Amendments Project that you conducted?
22 A. Basically, it's in three parts. The first
23 phase was to take a look at various soil amendments
24 that could be applied in bench scale type studies,
25 take a look at those different amendments which
Page 50
1 included calcium carbonates, gypsum, iron compounds,
2 aluminum compounds and even sludges and see if the
3 addition or disposal of those materials in mixing of
4 those soils would control the release of phosphorus.
5 It was recognized in Florida, in general,
6 but particularly in the Okeechobee area region, this
7 phosphorus actually very rapidly goes into a drainage
8 water, because the soils themself do not retain
9 phosphorus very well.
10 See, our job, our overall objective was to
11 determine what soil chemical amendments could be
12 added to those soils to increase its retention of
13 phosphorus.
14 The second phase we took a look at intact
15 soil column profiles from that area and amended those
16 soils under, both, flooded and drained conditions.
17 We took a look at the mobility of phosphorus from
18 those soils from the surface down through the profile
19 and took a look at the drainages off of those columns
20 to see if our amendment strategies determined in
21 phase one were actually working and for how long
22 would they work.
23 Those studies were done for a good 12
24 months, 13 months. We monitored phosphate and
25 nitrates, sulfates, you know, various things, PH,
Page 51
1 redox potentials of those soils, those columns.
2 The third phase is, we took this to the
3 field and into some dairy fields that we knew were
4 heavily loaded due to this activity in cattle and
5 dairy and applied what we thought would be one of the
6 optimum treatments and monitored that for roughly
7 about one year, and at the end of three years, our
8 contract with the District terminated. Basically,
9 you know, it was a three year study.
10 Q. What treatment did you end up using on the
11 field scale?
12 A. Well, it's not particularly a treatment,
13 what recipe, but basically what conditions did we
14 need to monitor and change.
15 In some cases, we had to be a little more
16 intelligent than just adding a recipe to the soil.
17 We wanted to control soil PH and basically
18 controlling that soil PH to a PH of 7. Then because
19 these soils are very low in calcium, we increased
20 calcium content also through the addition of gypsum
21 materials and also added ferrous sulfate or ferrous
22 chloride materials to increase its retention, because
23 iron is a very important component in retention of
24 phosphorus.
25 Q. What did you do to control the soil PH?
Page 52
1 A. Added limestone.
2 Q. Did you reach any conclusions as a result
3 of your studies?
4 A. Well, we concluded that this wasn't a
5 one-shot deal. Our remediation process did work. It
6 did show effectiveness.
7 Again, probably the best place to look at
8 the documentation of that is the article that's in
9 review right now with the Journal of Environmental
10 Quality on Gypsum Materials. We were able to reduce
11 the phosphate leaching of phosphorus by between 40
12 and 60 percent.
13 Our carbon levels of soluble organic
14 carbons were also reduced around 43. I don't
15 remember the figures exactly, but we were able to
16 reduce the soluble organic phosphorus coming off,
17 which is the color, which was also contains
18 phosphorus, and we also did control some of the
19 nitrates coming off of that. Again, that paper we
20 have under review documents that more formally.
21 Q. Has the use of soil amendments or the
22 processes you're investigating in your study of soil
23 amendments in Lake Okeechobee, have they been applied
24 and practiced in the drainage basin?
25 A. I don't think in a broad based way. It
Page 53
1 hasn't been done yet.
2 Sonny Williamson, one of the Board members
3 in the District was aware of it, and we have had
4 various seminars with the South Florida Water
5 Management District and with the dairy and we
6 discussed it and had several meetings talking about
7 it and documenting it.
8 As of yet, we have not had a full fledged
9 support for it, and I am not sure exactly why, except
10 information gets out very slowly. But we have had
11 people recognize the efforts.
12 Q. Are the soil amendment processes that you
13 were investigating in the Lake Okeechobee Basin,
14 would they be transferable or applicable in the EAA,
15 as well?
16 A. Again, I have to look at the economics
17 behind it.
18 I have done some other studies looking at
19 limestone remediation of some of the organics in the
20 EAA, and indeed it does retain phosphorus. We can
21 change the whole dynamics of phosphorus by adding
22 limestone. Those studies were done primarily to take
23 a look at the effect of high PH by adding those
24 carbonates to products, because we don't want to
25 destroy products, but also to take a look at the
Page 54
1 broader effects.
2 Many of these soils are above a bedrock, a
3 calcium carbonate bedrock. So when a road comes in
4 or a canal is dug, these materials are brought to the
5 edge or the perimeter of these fields, and the
6 question is what the effect of that mixing of those
7 carbonate materials of those roadways have upon the
8 phosphorus of those soils moving eventually into the
9 water.
10 We have not published -- we presented the
11 data at one of our national meetings, but we have
12 taken a look at that and seen that retention of
13 phosphorus can be done very well with carbonates.
14 Unfortunately, the organic soils are highly buffered.
15 They resist changing in PH. So in order to have a
16 very good effect, oftentimes, application of 20 to
17 maybe 60 tons of lime are necessary to change it to
18 see the effect that we want.
19 We have been interested in looking at
20 gypsum materials because we have been effective in
21 using disposable gypsum materials in the dairy areas
22 on those soils and seen very good effects upon
23 soluble carbon, upon nitrogen and phosphorus. We
24 have not proceeded yet to do any studies in the EAA
25 as of this point.
Page 55
1 Also, the residue materials that we're
2 working with currently in our water remediation
3 project, which are basically iron residues that
4 precipitate out, look to be very favorable also for
5 land application in the area, which essentially would
6 be a windwood scenario for anybody using these
7 residuals. They actually do tie up phosphorus more
8 strongly in soil, thus liming the amount of
9 phosphorus that would go in the drainage waters.
10 So there looks like there's opportunities
11 of applying different strategies. So right now all
12 the research has not either been done or been
13 concluded at this point in time, but yes there looks
14 like there are some opportunities in applying these
15 same practices.
16 Q. What are some of the economic constraints
17 you're dealing with in terms of applying these
18 technologies in the EAA?
19 A. In the EAA, if it comes down to limestone
20 and actually saying apply limestone to reduce
21 phosphorus losses, applying 30 tons, for example --
22 let's take a figure of 30 tons of limestone per acre
23 is obviously not an economic venture. Transporting
24 and bringing that much material over a half a million
25 acres is not going to be economical, but if it comes
Page 56
1 down to maybe recommending or recognizing that when
2 the District or private industry cleans this canal or
3 road base materials are put out, that there's a
4 chemical buffering effect that those residue
5 materials from those ditches have upon soil.
6 I think there would probably be some more
7 astute practice of where you put these materials,
8 maybe alternating when they clean ditches,
9 alternating -- instead of basically when they clean a
10 canal, it all goes to one side. A drag line operator
11 goes to one side, and he moves around -- turns around
12 to the opposite field and goes on that side and then
13 goes on the outside and zigzags.
14 So just having records that would identify
15 where modifications could be made, I think, is
16 probably a management practice that should be a
17 little bit well-known. Obviously, it's going to have
18 to be of assistance to growers and people that are
19 controlling these properties to do.
20 MR. GARVER: Why don't we take a little
21 break. I am about to shift topics here.
22 (Thereupon, a brief recess was taken,
23 after which the following proceedings
24 were had:)
25 BY MR. GARVER:
Page 57
1 Q. Doctor Anderson, I believe you testified
2 earlier that starting in December 199l you started
3 work on a project related to chemical treatment of
4 agricultural drainage waters in the EAA; is that
5 correct?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. How did you come to start working on that
8 project relating to chemical treatment?
9 A. Well, I had been working on another project
10 which I mentioned before with DER looking at fluid
11 desulphurization gypsum stack materials. What we
12 noticed is drainage waters coming from those soils
13 are increasingly clear with our chemical treatments.
14 I guess that was a time that a few of the industry
15 people knew what we were doing and took a look at it
16 and expressed an interest in whether or not we could
17 treat water in the same effect and clean it up, and
18 at that period in time I started looking at various
19 alternatives either from literature in the waste
20 water treatment area or other possibilities, and we
21 started screening different types of chemical
22 processes that could or could not be viable. We took
23 a look at calcium compounds, took a look at calcium
24 compound injection, various avenues.
25 We excluded some treatments because of the
Page 58
1 implied biological toxicity problems that would be
2 associated with it, which would include the use of
3 aluminum compounds, like alum. Basically, we did not
4 want to take a look at that, because I felt that with
5 an environmental agenda, that we would be looked at
6 very critically if something like this was
7 conversional, and use of aluminum is conversional.
8 Even in the science community, there's a lot of
9 questions in whether residual aluminum in water is
10 biologically safe.
11 There's a real question in drinking water
12 whether aluminum is still safe, even though it's an
13 accepted waste water treatment chemical. We kind of
14 avoided that.
15 Also, the other factors that we looked at
16 is what kind of residuals or byproducts would be
17 produced, either toxic or not, and we wanted to take
18 a look at those compounds or residuals that could be
19 easily land applied instead of disposed of in a
20 disposal area. We definitely don't want to have a
21 disposal problem.
22 So the use of aluminum and some of the high
23 PH calcium compounds were quickly assessed to be
24 probably not viable from a sense of either aluminum
25 left in water and being possibly conversional as far
Page 59
1 as toxicity and the materials of the byproduct or the
2 residual byproducts being a very high PH byproduct,
3 which is hard to manage or high in aluminum, which
4 again is a biological problem, because these
5 materials must be land applied without any biological
6 toxicity to be viable.
7 So with that screening, we eventually came
8 into evaluating the iron compounds, the use of
9 different iron compounds, and that's really where our
10 studies have led us right now, is to determine which
11 iron compounds are viable under different
12 circumstances.
13 I hope that gives you kind of a background
14 where it led from Point A to Point B, but it was kind
15 of a logical progression to what we are doing right
16 now.
17 Q. Going back to the beginning.
18 I believe you said the first thing you did
19 was a literature search or one of the first things
20 you did was a literature search; is that correct?
21 A. Well, we have been doing literature
22 searches all the time. From our previous work with
23 soil remediation, we noticed very quickly that we had
24 good control over what was drained. The drainage
25 materials, the water coming from these soils were
Page 60
1 lower in phosphorus, lower in nitrates, lower in
2 organic dissolved organic carbons. With that, our
3 progression of thoughts were, let's see if we can go
4 ahead and do some treatment techniques. Without
5 going all over it again, that's basically how we
6 derived with it.
7 The aluminum compounds, I think I mentioned
8 had some controversial edges to it, and we're
9 avoiding some of those because of the obvious
10 pitfalls in adapting or adoption of these practices.
11 Q. What literature did you rely on to try and
12 develop or refine this project as you moved along?
13 A. I have got a bookcase full of literature
14 from liminology textbooks, to waste water treatment
15 authorities, which include EPA documents. I mean, I
16 have got reams of material that we have looked over
17 and read, from textbooks to EPA reports.
18 The technology of water treatment is not a
19 new technology. It's a fairly well documented
20 technology. The adoption into the natural system,
21 into the natural water system is what makes it very
22 different.
23 Water treatment in the urban setting was
24 done because, essentially, governments said cities
25 had to comply with cleaning up their water or there
Page 61
1 was a need to have clean drinking water. As
2 population centers grew, so did these waste water and
3 treatment drinking water centers in urban areas grow.
4 Essentially, these plants were developed in small
5 acreage areas where they didn't have a lot of space.
6 They essentially were in an urban situation. So the
7 engineering behind a water treatment is pretty much
8 confined to an urban setting.
9 Now, when we're treating water for a
10 natural system, especially in the Everglades
11 Agriculture Area, we essentially have a lot of space
12 to work with. The treatment, while being very
13 similar in chemistry, how we treated the residuals or
14 what's precipitated out, we have more flexibility.
15 Residues are removed in water treatment
16 facilities through either sand filters or centrifugal
17 pumps or other methods, rarely by gravitation.
18 Primarily, it's because they don't have the large
19 space to work with. The residence time of the amount
20 of water they treat is limited. They just don't have
21 the space. They may have ten acres of city property,
22 and in that piece of property, they have to do their
23 whole chemical process and design.
24 In the EAA, we have some very -- or in the
25 natural water system, it's very different. Number 1,
Page 62
1 I think some of the rules that we established for our
2 research, number one, our residuals had to be
3 compatible for land application, our byproduct.
4 Number two, you have to abide to Class III
5 DER legal standards for water affluents, which means
6 that chlorides can't be too high. PH to has to be in
7 this area, you know, the various standards for Class
8 III waters. You're working, also, with a biological
9 system where you might have fish or other benthic
10 organisms on the bottom. Your processes can't impact
11 those negatively.
12 So when you take a look at the process in a
13 natural system, we can immediately exclude certain
14 practices or common treatment engineering designs as
15 incompatible.
16 Alum is not compatible. The use of high PH
17 calcium compounds for precipitation is not
18 compatible. So that limited us very quickly to the
19 use of iron compounds, and you have got several
20 different scenarios to those, also, which limit or
21 narrow their use, depending upon them. There's four
22 different iron compounds.
23 Q. Let me try and go back before we get into
24 the details of what you have done.
25 Are you doing this work relating to
Page 63
1 chemical treatment in the EAA pursuant to some kind
2 of a contractual arrangement?
3 A. We have a grant right now with the Florida
4 Sugar Cane League currently that expires at the end
5 of April.
6 Q. How much was that grant for?
7 A. $185,000.
8 Q. For your three year study on soil elements
9 that you did for the South Florida Water Management
10 District, how much was that grant for?
11 A. 110,000. It might have been a little bit
12 more, somewhere in that neighborhood.
13 Q. In order to get the grant from the Florida
14 Sugar Cane league, did you have to do a proposal?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Was that a written proposal?
17 A. Yes, it was.
18 Q. Did you include that in the documents which
19 were requested?
20 A. Yes, in Report 92-11. Those proposals, I
21 believe, are in the back, in the appendices.
22 Q. I guess I'd just like to pinpoint now the
23 chronology of, I guess what you did over the last
24 year a little bit.
25 What was the first thing you did, starting
Page 64
1 in December 1991, that started to initiate this
2 process?
3 A. We started screening, basically, what
4 alternatives there are in chemical treatment, what
5 could possibly be used. You're looking at,
6 basically, calcium compounds, looking at
7 precipitation techniques, very similar to what our
8 soil remediation work would have looked at, very
9 similar process.
10 Q. And how long did this screening process
11 take?
12 A. Probably till the end of May.
13 We had a very short period of time to
14 produce what we have done right now. So probably
15 about the end of May. Then we had pretty much looked
16 at some of the other alternatives and started to
17 focus more on some specific ones that we're working
18 on right now.
19 Q. What was the result of that screening
20 process that ended in May of 1992?
21 A. Well, it didn't really end. I am just
22 saying chronologically roughly around May we knew
23 another direction. We are going now from Point A to
24 Point B to now Point c.
25 We knew that the use of calcium compounds
Page 65
1 to precipitate phosphorus was not dependable, didn't
2 always work. We found out that the waters that we
3 were working with in the EAA were like weak acids.
4 They had hydration impoundments. They were heavily
5 buffered, that under anaerobic or aerobic conditions,
6 we would be unlikely to have reliable results, and
7 that basically going to calcium routes was not going
8 to be viable. Then moving from that point, we took a
9 look at some of the metals through the use of iron
10 compounds.
11 Q. So roughly speaking, around May 1992, you
12 shifted emphasis from a broad range of including
13 calcium compounds and shifted more towards iron
14 compounds?
15 A. Right.
16 My former students had also worked, I
17 think, on a District contract. The District gave
18 money to Ramesh Redy out of Gainesville and my former
19 student who took a look at calcium compounds and its
20 effects with varying PH's. Basically, I think they
21 found out the same thing as we did.
22 Q. Did you say your former student?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Who was that?
25 A. Orlando Diaz.
Page 66
1 Q. He is now or subsequent to working with you
2 is working with Ramesh Redy?
3 A. He is still working with Ramesh.
4 Q. And after May 1992, what kind of work were
5 you doing on this project?
6 A. Well, beginning in May, we finally got our
7 grant approved with the Sugar Cane League, and I
8 proceeded to find the staff that I needed to do the
9 work that was being asked to be done up to this point
10 in time, which was essentially to go from jar test
11 methodology to hopefully get into pilot or field
12 studies that would investigate the use of the field
13 study.
14 I hired in July a water environmental
15 engineer, also two other lab technicians and chemists
16 at that period of time. So basically our grant was
17 probably close to 50-percent was to -- quite a bit of
18 the money was put up for initial investment in the
19 laboratory and in people and in equipment.
20 Q. Who was the environmental engineer?
21 A. It's a woman named Asha Ceric, and she is
22 listed in that report in my resume from 92-11. In
23 fact, all the names of the people involved with that
24 are listed in that report.
25 Q. In general, since May of 1992, what
Page 67
1 research have you actually conducted?
2 A. Previous to 1992, no.
3 Q. No. Since May 1992.
4 Well, let's start at the beginning. I'd
5 like to sort of keep with the chronology.
6 What research projects have you conducted
7 or laboratory or field?
8 A. What other projects, in general?
9 Q. No.
10 MR. GAINES: You mean relating to this
11 92-11?
12 BY MR. GARVER:
13 Q. Right.
14 A. Since the report?
15 Q. No. Since the beginning. I just want to
16 get a chronology of your actual research projects.
17 A. Okay. I got you.
18 We were working in conjunction with one of
19 the consulting engineering companies that was under
20 contract with the Sugar Cane League, Hutcheons
21 Engineers, and their responsibility was to do the
22 engineering behind any future pilot plants or to
23 request of us any specific engineering design
24 criteria that needed to be determined in our jar test
25 or bench scale testing.
Page 68
1 So, essentially our group, whether it be at
2 the beginning or whether it be with a pilot plant, is
3 essential to the whole process, because what we
4 determine is the criteria for the level of dosing,
5 the rates, the levels of concentration needed, what
6 materials are needed, determining what the residue
7 makeup is, the rate of deposition of materials, the
8 times required, the chemical windows or the chemical
9 criteria that needed to be stayed within to monitor
10 the variability of water that comes into a treatment
11 area.
12 So in this time, we took a look at data
13 water samples that came from the Environmental
14 Protection District beginning in September of '92.
15 At that period of time, every week we took a look at
16 19 field site stations with the EPD and ran
17 approximately 23 different water criteria on each
18 sample as they came into the lab, and those criteria
19 are listed in the report.
20 Our interest in that was to determine how
21 variable water was in the EAA. If we were to receive
22 water at a treatment facility for chemical dosing,
23 it's essential to know what kind of variability you
24 would expect, whether this variability will effect
25 the rate of dosing to keep high efficiency of
Page 69
1 treatment. Essentially, we have been continuing to
2 monitor that even to this day, that information.
3 The other thing that I did, I was able to
4 get ahold of some South Florida Water Management
5 District Basin water quality data, and we took a look
6 at the data coming from the District regarding total
7 phosphorus, soluble phosphorus, and also taking a
8 look then at its particulate loading and determining
9 what that variability was and how variable it was.
10 Again, for the same reasons. It's to see
11 at the end of the treatment at the end of the EAA how
12 does that water compare with the EPD samples which
13 are essentially close to the lake, and our interest
14 in that was to use that information in what we are
15 doing to develop a good sense of direction, you know,
16 for example, how much carbon was effecting our
17 system, how much hardness in alkalinity of the waters
18 were affecting our dosing conditions.
19 You just want to know about this particular
20 project? That's basically the venues that we have
21 been following since then.
22 Q. What have the EPD data indicated with
23 respect to variablity of water quality in the
24 inflows?
25 A. There's extremes in variability, and the
Page 70
1 data, again, is in that report. It's summarized in
2 that report in one of the tables.
3 There's another -- we did some sediment
4 work, also, just a little bit of sediment work. Out
5 of this, what I determined, at least my determination
6 is from the District data at well as EDP data was
7 that the particulate loading, the amount of suspended
8 solids in our EAA waters is probably the number one
9 problem of the ultimate phosphorus loading of these
10 waters. The variability could be as low as close to
11 zero percent particulate to as high as ninety some
12 percent particulate.
13 I think the average particulate loading
14 from EPD was in the neighborhood of 80.4 of the total
15 phosphorus was in particulate form, whereas the
16 average data from the end of the basin from the
17 District indicated it was just around 49.8 percent
18 particulate, the total phosphorus, which means that
19 between areas along the lake, EPD sampling to the
20 areas just outside of the EAA where the District
21 basin end, that you have really a drop out of
22 approximately 30-percent of the phosphorus in the
23 particulate form between that.
24 I know that's just a short amount of data
25 base, but it said to me, again, that the particulate
Page 71
1 loading was by far one of the important aspects that
2 we're working with. The sediments ultimately is
3 going to be the most important of our considerations.
4 One of the advantages of dosing is that
5 when you precipitate this iron hydroxide compounds in
6 water, it becomes a cloud immediately. When you
7 dose, that little cloud comes together. Those
8 particles come together and make a larger particle
9 when they get bigger. They get heavy and they fall
10 out and they settle out. In that whole process,
11 suspended particles also have a charge to them. They
12 have a positive or negative charge. The balance
13 between what is in solution with the anions and
14 cations and what is in particulate form has a lot to
15 do with the rate of coagulation of these materials
16 and ultimately their sedimentation down.
17 If you have a very high level of
18 particulate, the dosing also has not only a favorable
19 aspect on precipitating the soluble fraction, but
20 takes out either the biological detritus or the
21 suspended particles. It has a two-edged sword. It
22 takes out both the suspended and the soluble
23 fractions.
24 In my association with people from the
25 Netherlands who I have been working with, they
Page 72
1 essentially do the same thing. They will take --
2 they will treat fairly large lake areas that had very
3 high chlorophyl content, very high algae content,
4 treat it with ferrous sulfate, and the ferrous
5 sulfate takes out the algae that is suspended and
6 takes that out, and that's sort of their primary
7 treatment before it comes in for the final polshing.
8 That's basically what I found, you know,
9 comparing the data bases for the EPD and then the
10 District. It proved to me that the particulate phase
11 is something that we have to pay careful attention
12 to.
13 There's some ramifications of that. It
14 means that if, for example, the District as well as
15 growers are pumping at a very high rate, that that
16 water velocity will scalp the bottom, resuspend
17 particules, any construction going on in a canal, you
18 know, resuspended particles will obviously just
19 introduce a new load, nutrient load.
20 Obviously, if none of the canals were
21 cleaned out, you have a potential of resuspending a
22 lot of sediments that could be potentially harmful to
23 complying with very low water quality standards, both
24 on the industry standpoint and on the government
25 standpoint or the workings of the District that could
Page 73
1 have implications on both sides.
2 Maybe I should just stop there and let you
3 ask questions. You asked me about the variability of
4 the EPD samples.
5 Q. And I got a long answer.
6 A. You got a long answer, but to me, there was
7 a lot of real meat that we found out from that.
8 Q. Just in general, how does what you learned
9 with respect to variabilty of drainage waters in the
10 EAA, how has that impacted your research or the
11 conducting of your project as to chemical treatment
12 alternatives?
13 A. Well, at the end of April, it may not
14 matter if we don't get continued funding, but if
15 supposing that we continue with chemical dosing, this
16 is going to continue to be a viable alternative in
17 the future for continuing this work.
18 We essentially need a laboratory team of
19 people to monitor variability. That would be monitor
20 the variability of the water received at any one
21 given point to be able to adjust the dosing rates and
22 to make sure that if we're doing a dosing chemical
23 treatment, that we have optimum efficiency at removal
24 of nutrients. Without it, you can't give any one
25 person a recipe, you know. You can't take our
Page 74
1 research and say okay at 60 parts per million, you
2 add this compound and this and this and this, and we
3 don't need you anymore. That's not really true.
4 If you have any knowledge of waste water
5 treatment at all, you will know that every city, City
6 of Palm Beach or City of Tampa, have directly
7 associated with it a laboratory of jar testers and
8 chemists that continually work on a daily or hourly
9 basis monitoring the flow of water into their
10 facility to make sure that there aren't problems that
11 impact the efficiency of that plant.
12 You know, we're dealing with natural water
13 treatment, and I think it's probably just as
14 important for us to make sure that we have -- if we
15 do chemical dosing, that the only problems could be
16 as alluring efficiency. The variability of the EPD
17 samples told me that phosphorus could range from --
18 there's some lows and highs -- but from well below 50
19 parts per billion phosphorus to as high as maybe 500
20 or 600 parts per bill phosphorus.
21 There's some times when you don't have to
22 chemically treat water. Sometimes you do. If the
23 concentration goes up, oftentimes, those rates of
24 chemical dosing have to be altered. That has to do
25 with -- the levels of carbon or other constituents
Page 75
1 which effect the efficiency of chemical dosing also
2 change with time.
3 Although I don't have a whole year or two
4 years or several years of data base with me, I would
5 expect that what happens during the Summer with heavy
6 rains is much different than occasional rains during
7 Winter, that when algae grows real strongly in the
8 Summer, that's going to be different than with the
9 particular type of loading that you see in the
10 Wintertime or the Spring or the Fall.
11 Q. What specific things would you need to
12 monitor?
13 A. We still have to do more work to give you
14 definitive answers to that, but all I can give you is
15 my gut feeling reactions that we feel that hardness
16 is important. Hardness is the calcium magnesium
17 content of the water.
18 We feel that the alkalinity is important.
19 Alkalinity is expressed in terms of calcium carbonate
20 per milligram per liter.
21 We feel that the amount of dissolved
22 organic carbon is important.
23 We also feel that the particulate content
24 is important, how much particulate mass is actually
25 in the water or suspended, and all those factors
Page 76
1 appear to change quite radically, probably less
2 hardness. Because we're working with calcium
3 carbonate bedrocks very close to the surface, that
4 has a tendency of changing less than the other
5 factors, but it's still very important.
6 Q. What about PH?
7 A. PH is also -- I didn't mean to exclude it,
8 but PH is fundamentally the most important.
9 Q. And I suppose you'd want to know the amount
10 of phosphorus, also?
11 A. Well, our different compounds precipitate
12 and coagulate best under given PH regimes. The DER
13 requirements for Class III drainage waters state that
14 those drainage waters should be between a PH of 6 and
15 8.5. There's cases where our natural waters are both
16 higher and lower than that standard, naturally.
17 When waste waters are flooded in a
18 marshland or wetland situation, you have PH's that
19 exceed a PH of 9 largely related to the buildup of
20 CO2 in this water that turns to bicarbonate, and that
21 raises the PH high.
22 Now, freshly drained water in the EAA,
23 especially in the 20 Mile Bend area where the soils
24 have a PH of 3.8 or 4 or 4.5, drainage waters have
25 considerably a PH of less than 6. So that
Page 77
1 fundamentally is important for us to know in having a
2 good treatment efficiency, and that does change,
3 depending on where you're receiving your water,
4 whether it be 20 Mile Bend or down the Miami Canal.
5 Q. I want to go through the list of parameters
6 you gave me.
7 Why is hardness important to monitor?
8 A. It gets down to the balance you have in the
9 water. You have an equal amount of anions and
10 cations, which means the anions have a negative
11 charge. The cations have a positive charge. If
12 there are ten positively charged anions, you have to
13 have an equivalent amount of negative charges.
14 Some organic compounds may have associated
15 some negative charges in one molecule, but basically
16 there has to be a charge balance, plus the minus is
17 equal to a zero charge.
18 When you put particulates in -- suspended
19 solids have a charge also they have a surface charge.
20 When you start precipitating the calcium and some of
21 the anions that were insoluble fractions to a soluble
22 fraction, they can either stay apart or they can
23 attract, and they fall out and grow bigger, and they
24 fall out.
25 If you have a lot of calcium, for example,
Page 78
1 a lot of magnesium, which are positive cations, you
2 must have a balance of negative charges, both in
3 solid solution and in regular liquid solution to be
4 able to have a coagulation process, an attraction
5 process. So if you have a hardness that is very
6 high, that means that the amount of negative charges
7 somewhere has also got to be very, very high, and if
8 it fluctuates a lot, that changes the whole ballpark.
9 Adjusting PH has to do with the variable
10 charges that occur in water. Sometimes very little
11 adjustment of PH is necessary for good recoagulation.
12 Let's just think of you adding Pine Sol to
13 a bucket of water, and you take this clear Pine Sol,
14 put it in a bucket of water, and it turns white.
15 Something happens there. Well, you add the chemical.
16 It precipitates. It gets into mass is where it
17 finally settles out. It stays in suspension.
18 Your charge balance has everything to do
19 with whether or not it will precipitate and then
20 coagulate. There's two processes, and all those
21 factors have a lot to do with good coagulation
22 processes.
23 Sometimes a coagulate aid is used. They
24 add a synthetic or natural organic compound which has
25 another charge to it to balance out that calcium in
Page 79
1 order for it to precipitate out.
2 I don't know where you're from. Did you
3 ever see a pond form in Georgia or New York that's
4 full of clay? It's just a murky pond. What they do
5 to clean the pond is add lime, and all of a sudden,
6 after a day it's clear. You can see the bottom.
7 You add Calgon to your dishwasher because
8 you're adding something that will precipitate instead
9 of keep it suspended, and it helps to clear out your
10 suspended particles. It's the same process in water.
11 Your charge balance is extremely essential.
12 Probably the best person that has done work
13 on it in the world right now, literature wise, is a
14 man out of Germany, and his name is Haire Burnhardt,
15 and some of his articles -- I have talked with him
16 before, and some of his work really has defined a lot
17 of these processes. Some of these are textbook
18 explanations that I am giving you.
19 Q. In determination of the waters you're
20 dealing with in the EAA, is there a desirable level
21 of hardness in terms of ease of employment of the
22 kind of chemicals you would be using?
23 A. The hardness factor you can't really
24 control. In fact, water that's pumped from 1000 feet
25 has a very high hardness, because it's pumping
Page 80
1 through bedrock calcium carbonate.
2 In cases where there is no bedrock
3 influences, the hardnesses are a lot lower, but
4 generally that's a fact.
5 We're probably in the neighborhood of ten
6 times higher than elsewhere in the world or more so
7 if we have a hardness of 800 parts per million.
8 Typically, elsewhere in the world, it's 80, 50, 40.
9 The same with organic carbon. Typically we're 10 to
10 20 times higher or more or 100 times higher. Excuse
11 me.
12 In Europe, I have seen data they are
13 working with one part per million dissolved organic
14 carbon. We're talking with 200, 300 parts per
15 million carbon.
16 Q. So hardness, is that something that you
17 don't see that much variability then in the EAA?
18 A. That is probably the factor that stays the
19 most stabler of any of them, although it does vary.
20 Drainage water coming from 20 Mile Bend,
21 which are soils over sand, don't have the same
22 hardness of those soils over calcium carbonate.
23 Q. How about alkalinity, is that quite
24 variable in the waters in the EAA?
25 A. That is quite variable. That is typically
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1 two-thirds the concentration as hardness typically,
2 and that is extremely variable. The alkalinity
3 depends on whether or not the water is frequently
4 pumped or whether it's been sitting in a field
5 gathering CO2 and bicarbonate. That's observed
6 through a titration, its buffering capacity. It's
7 tritration ability, that can vary widely, and I
8 believe there's publication in my reports in May
9 about that.
10 Q. How would you treat water with high
11 alkalinity in the EAA different than water with low
12 alkalinity?
13 A. Basically, as the hardness increases, the
14 alkalinity increases. The carbon increases. So does
15 the rate of dosing. It consumes more chemical.
16 Q. Would there ever be circumstances where you
17 would have to use a different chemical for treatment,
18 depending on the alkalinity?
19 A. Possible.
20 There's really four different chemicals
21 that fit in an alternative for treatment. The iron
22 two compounds, which are very soluble, they are
23 called iron sulfate, ferrous sulfate and ferrous
24 chloride.
25 Then you have the other compounds called
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1 ferric sulfate and ferric chloride. These are the
2 iron three compounds.
3 There's really a viable usage for all four
4 compounds, depending on where it's used and how it's
5 used. I don't know if you want those described to
6 you.
7 Q. Why don't we go through that.
8 When would each of those different
9 compounds be suitable?
10 A. Again, let's go back to why we're treating
11 natural water systems.
12 Ultimately, we still have to comply with
13 our regulation of Class III drainage waters, correct,
14 which means that iron has to stay below one part per
15 million in concentration. If we're working with iron
16 compounds, we need to make sure that we have tables
17 of low iron and keep low iron in a solution. The
18 ferrous materials stay in solution readily. It takes
19 time before they are conversed into an iron three.
20 Iron three are very unstable. They
21 precipitate rapidly, and they come out of solution.
22 Conceivably, after adding ferric compounds, you could
23 have a lower concentration of iron then when you
24 started with no iron added at all. You could have a
25 half a part per million iron naturally, and after you
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1 add your ferric, you could reduce it to a tenth of
2 that, because iron is very reactive and it affects
3 the chemistry of that water. So you can not directly
4 say by adding iron you're going to exceed a standard,
5 because it's just not the way it works. There's
6 precipitations reactions.
7 The iron two compounds take time, and
8 because they take time, typically, immediately after
9 adding a ferrous compound, you have very high levels
10 of iron in solution. It kinetically takes time for
11 them to be converted to iron three compounds or let's
12 say a ferric hydroxide, because that's what we're
13 converting ultimately from an iron sulfate or iron
14 chloride to a ferric hydroxide material, and that
15 ferric hydroxide material is extremely variable, its
16 molecular size. They call it islands of hydroxy.
17 They grow. They get bigger. You can't say there is
18 a chemical formula for one, because they grow and
19 they have different states in time.
20 If you have a drainage field which you knew
21 you were going to flood and keep flooded let's say
22 for one month or one week, very conceivably a ferrous
23 material could be added to that ponded situation, and
24 it conceivably could be enough time for it to
25 precipitate out in a week's time or month's time. So
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1 conceivably the ferrous materials would be a viable
2 alternative.
3 If you have anaerobic conditions, meaning
4 oxygen depletion, and you're using an iron sulfate,
5 you may have problems, because the sulfate
6 precipitates the product, the hydroxide and the
7 sulfate in mass residue precipated on a sediment when
8 it becomes anaerobic will go under aerobic
9 decomposition, and y