The chief plant operator at one of St. Petersburg’s sewage plants says city officials knew that closing the Albert Whitted plant before improvements were made at another facility could cause overflows during heavy rains.
Federal law protects workers who have whistleblower status from being retaliated against by firing or other adverse employment actions when the employee reports serious violations. Craven Askew said he was claiming whistleblower status because “public safety and the environment is suspected to be possibly in danger due to the sewage spills produced by the Albert Whitted Wastewater Reclamation Facility shutdown.”
The city declined to comment on Askew’s complaint.
“It’s a whistleblower action, and because of the nature of the action, we can’t comment right now,” said Ben Kirby, spokesman for St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman.
In his complaint, Askew says that after the decision was made to close Albert Whitted because there was not enough land available to build a reject tank, which could have been used to store wastewater should that plant experience a shutdown.
The city decided to close Albert Whitted and divert the wastewater to the Southwest Water Reclamation Facility, 3800 54th Ave. S. Askew referred to a study that said Southwest was unable to handle the additional wastewater in the case of really bad weather. It recommended improvements be made at Southwest before transferring the flow from Albert Whitted.
Askew alleges that the city shut down Albert Whitted “without making the recommended upgrades to Southwest.” He further says the city would have been able to handle three heavy rain events — August 2015, June 2016, and August/September 2016 — if Albert Whitted was still online.
“Albert Whitted plant needs to be placed back into service until [Southwest] completes the required upgrades for the sake of public health and environmental impact of sewage spills,” Askew concludes.
