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Crowds 'Making A Dump Out Of The Alafia River'

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 26, 2007

VALRICO - Walking down a shady dirt path near the Lithia-Pinecrest Bridge, there is an idyllic setting on the Alafia River that conjures images of a slower pace.

The rope swing hanging from a giant oak draped over the river seems picture-perfect. Imagination adds young boys hollering in the heavy summer air as they drop into the water below.

Look toward the ground, though, and the pastoral image vanishes.

Piles of empty beer bottles, plastic water carafes and other garbage are scattered throughout the area, the result of illegal parties that sometimes draw large crowds. Deputies responded to a 911 call from the area during Labor Day weekend when a girl fell from the oak tree.

A newly installed barricade, meant to keep vehicle traffic out of the area and quell the problem, lasted less than a week. Someone took a chain saw to it and plowed on through.

Addressing the ongoing problem won't be easy, Hillsborough County sheriff's officials say.

'This has been a swimmin' hole for a long time,' said sheriff's Detective Shannon Locke. 'I've never seen it as trashed as it is right now. It's not the 12- and 13-year-old boys that come here to swing that are causing this problem. It's the older teens and the young adults.'

Locke, who works for the sheriff's environmental unit, doesn't see it getting better.

'If they have the audacity to go in there with a chain saw and cut down those poles,' it will be hard to keep visitors out, the detective said.

River activist Karen Wagner is pushing for a solution.

She said she is frustrated and fears someone is going to get hurt.

'This has been going on and off for five years,' said Wagner, who lives along the river and is president of the Alafia River Basin Stewardship Council. 'Before that, the area was barricaded off for 20 or 30 years.'

Since then, she said, partygoers have cut or torn down numerous gates and left behind broken glass, mounds of garbage and empty shotgun shell casings.

A sign hanging from one of the oaks spray-painted with the words 'Take Trash' is riddled with bullet holes, a heap of garbage lying nearby.

Wagner said she found a crowd of 50 to 100 people when she visited Sept. 2. She said partygoers cursed as a deputy took photographs.

'I've been trying to tell the county somebody's going to get hurt,' said Wagner, a private investigator.

The almost 2 acres in question is a county right-of-way controlled by the Public Works Department. It is surrounded by property the county purchased through the Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP) for conservation.

'Even though it isn't ELAPP land yet, we put up the barricades to appease the community,' said Ross Dickerson, general manager of conservation for the county Parks, Recreation and Conservation Department.

'Right now, we're going to be working with transportation maintenance to try and secure the area,' he said.

But because it is a public right-of-way, it cannot be blocked off, Dickerson said.

The road going off the southwest side of the bridge must remain open as long as it is a county right-of-way, Dickerson said. The county is trying to figure out whether it can block the area off as a private road to keep vehicle traffic out, he said.

That way, he said, people could access the area only on foot or from the river.

'There needs to be a way to block them so they can't even turn off the road,' he said. 'As long as vehicles have access, it is hard to patrol.'

And it's every weekend, Wagner said. 'We want the county to monitor and maintain the property if they are going to allow public access.'

Wagner is going to ask the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to use some of the $1 million in penalties it received from a 1997 acid spill into the river to fund a maintenance program that could include garbage pickup.

'You can't even kayak any more without a garbage bag and a net,' Wagner said. 'They're making a dump out of the river.'

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 657-4532 or at yhammett@tampatrib.com.

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