Last year, the state of Florida bought more than 11,000 acres for nearly $30 million from the powerful Collier family near Everglades City for conservation. Now, a former employee of Parker J. Collier — the matriarch of the family that gives Collier County its name — claims that most of that land is toxic.
Sonja Eddings Brown, a former Collier employee, says in a federal lawsuit made public late last week that independent tests show that at least 20,000 acres of the sold land were likely contaminated with a wood treatment chemical called creosote that is linked to a 1956 fire that she says her family never cleaned up.
Long-term exposure to creosote can cause birth defects and cancer, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Brown claims Collier never reported the contamination to the state.
“This case centers on a businesswoman and matriarch of a powerful Florida family, Parker Collier, and the wrongful acts she committed to enrich herself by orchestrating the promotion and sale of 8,000 acres of land contaminated with deadly creosote in the Everglades,” Brown’s unsealed complaint reads.
Collier vehemently denied the allegations through a spokesman to the Herald/Times.
“This claim is baseless and completely without merit,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “We categorically reject all allegations brought against us and will vigorously defend our position and reputation, using the full extent of the legal remedies available to us.”
The lawsuit is part of a larger labor dispute with Parker Collier. The lawsuit alleges that Parker Collier misrepresented the pollution of the Green Heart of the Everglades land to Brown when she presented it to the DeSantis and Trump administrations in 2020. Brown alleges that Parker Collier subsequently fired her when she began asking questions about the pollution while simultaneously raising concerns about corruption in a separate development deal in Collier County.
It’s unclear whether Brown’s claims about the contamination of the Collier land — sold to the state in a project called Green Heart of the Everglades — will jeopardize conservation efforts. The purchase represents the last significant piece of private land separating the Everglades ecosystem. It lies between Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park and Big Cypress National Preserve. It’s home to 39 threatened or endangered species, including the American crocodile, black bear and Florida panther, according to a project summary.
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A spokesman for the South Florida Water Management District, which purchased the land on behalf of the state, told the Herald/Times in an email that an “extensive environmental review” of the land was conducted before the transaction, as is customary. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the governor’s office declined to answer specific questions, with the governor’s staff referring the newspaper to the district for information.
Ernie Cox, a lobbyist for the environmental group WildLandscapes International that orchestrated the state’s purchase of the land, disputed that the land was toxic. He said the county’s environmental impact statement addressed creosote contamination on land that was not part of the parcel sold to the state.
“The people who do that [these assessments] “They know what they’re talking about and they’ve looked at all the backups. It seems like the conclusion was that this was cleaned up many years ago and is no longer a problem,” Cox said.
He added: “If there was an issue, WildLandscapes would have raised it.”
Cox said he never worked with Brown on the sale of the land. The lawsuit says Brown was fired in 2020, during the early promotion of the sale. By the time the land was sold to the South Florida Water Management District, she was no longer involved.
The Herald/Times reviewed the environmental impact report, which cites a previous creosote spill in the unconnected Jerome area about 150 feet east of the parcel sold to the state, but notes that it has since been cleaned up, citing government reports. No physical sampling was done for the report.
Brown claims she has conducted her own environmental testing, reviewed by a toxicologist, on land adjacent to the parcel sold in Jerome in May and June. Those tests show the land is toxic, indicating that much of the Green Heart of the Everglades land is likely toxic as well, she claims.
“Recent testing of land immediately adjacent to the Everglades property indicates that creosote-related contaminants continue to be present on the land and in drinking water to this day,” Brown’s complaint states.
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF POISON LAND
Jerome is a small, rural area in Collier County on the edge of the Everglades, north of Everglades City and Copeland. It was built in the 1920s and housed employees of the C.J. Jones Lumber Company, the “largest manufacturer of treated wood products in the southeastern United States,” according to Brown’s complaint.
According to the indictment, CJ Jones leased that land from a company owned by the Collier family.
According to the lawsuit and the county’s environmental impact statement, a 1956 fire exploded 3,000 gallons of creosote while the company was shutting down operations.
For decades, Jerome residents have complained about the quality of their water, the complaint said.
In 1990, Florida’s then-Department of Environmental Regulation commissioned the Collier company to remediate the site and provide the city with alternative drinking water, under an agreement between the Collier family business and the state.
But in 2003, dozens of Jerome residents were still convinced their drinking water was contaminated with creosote, the Naples Daily News reported at the time, and they filed a lawsuit against the Collier family business.
According to Brown’s complaint, the Collier Companies have reached a settlement.
Brown’s physical samples from the land adjacent to the parcel sold to the state were evaluated by Dr. James Dahlgren, a toxicologist who became famous for helping to expose an energy company’s role in the 1993 contamination of California’s water. The samples show that Jerome’s soil and drinking water remain contaminated, and that surrounding areas likely remain contaminated as well, including much of the land sold to the state.
Dahlgren concluded that “’the water and soil surrounding Jerome and Everglades City are contaminated and must be remediated or they will remain a toxic source for hundreds of years,’” Brown’s complaint said.
Dahlgren said the results represent “the tip of the iceberg indicating likely widespread water contamination” that poses significant health risks.
The Herald/Times sought to interview Dahlgren, but he was unavailable at the time of publication.
In addition to largely transferring the government’s ownership of the Everglades ecosystem, the Green Heart of the Everglades will not be mined for minerals or drilled for oil, as the Collier family companies also sold those rights to the government, pursuant to the sales agreement.
The Green Heart of the Everglades is “one of the few subtropical areas in North America” and “is known for supporting up to 44 native orchids and 14 native bromeliad species, including one of the world’s rarest plants — the ghost orchid,” according to the project summary. The ghost orchid was featured in the 2002 film Adaptation, based on the 1998 nonfiction book The Orchid Thief by journalist Susan Orlean.
“The location of this collection of lands is unique and irreplaceable,” according to a May 11 memorandum from the South Florida Water Management District about the project. “The ecological values of these lands are extraordinary, along with the ecosystem services these lands provide.”
The memo continued: “This acquisition has broad public support and is an incredible opportunity to improve water quality, increase habitat connectivity, coordinate management with adjacent protected areas, and protect these areas in perpetuity.”
Cox, the WildLandscapes lobbyist who coordinated the sale, said he worried that Brown’s allegations would create unnecessary controversy over a purchase he saw as fair.
“I’m afraid someone is trying to say this transaction wasn’t done right,” Cox said. “She’s saying the [creosote contamination] was hidden. And it wasn’t.”
Gabriela Henriquez Stoikow, an editor at the Herald, contributed to this report.
