What $35,000 Cannot Repay

Bull Creek runs through Osceola County in central Florida. It is not a famous river. It will not appear in travel brochures. It is a traditional navigable waterway under federal law, which means it is connected to the broader web of water systems that people fish, swim in, and depend on. It is also the body of water that received the industrial runoff of a mulch company for the better part of a decade, unbothered by any permit requirement, unchecked by any compliance schedule, while the people downstream had no idea it was happening.

Think about what a mulch production facility actually looks like: piles of raw wood material sitting in the open, chippers running, fuel stored on-site, everything exposed to Florida’s seasonal rains. When those rains come, the water picks up whatever is sitting on the ground: decomposing organic matter, fuel residue, debris, sediment, and whatever else accumulates in an industrial yard. That water has to go somewhere. At 4754 North Kenansville Road, it went into drainage ditches. The EPA inspectors in July 2019 noted those ditches were carrying “tannic colored water,” the visual sign of heavy organic contamination in runoff.

That tannic water did not stay on the property. It moved through the drainage system to the southwest outfall and into Bull Creek. The EPA’s review of rainfall history confirmed this happened on at least 13 documented days between September 2019 and May 2020 alone. The document covers only that eight-month window. Florida Mulch had been operating since around 1996, and the permit requirement for industrial stormwater has been in federal law since well before then. There is no record in this document of a permit application being submitted before May 8, 2020, the exact day the EPA’s information request arrived.

No person’s name appears in this document as a victim. That is the nature of waterway pollution. The harm is diffuse, it is invisible in daily life, and it is absorbed collectively by every living thing that depends on the water. The fish, the birds, the people fishing on the weekend who are not told the water upstream has been receiving unregulated industrial discharge, the families whose well water sits in the same regional water table: none of them signed this consent agreement. None of them received a settlement. None of them got to neither admit nor deny anything. They just got the runoff.

The penalty, $35,000, closes the federal civil case. The company’s president signed. The EPA signed. The Regional Judicial Officer signed. The docket is closed. Bull Creek does not sign anything.

What the Document Actually Says

These are verbatim extracts from Consent Agreement and Final Order, Docket No. CWA-04-2024-1021(b), filed with the EPA Region 4 Hearing Clerk on April 28, 2025. The document is the entire legal basis for resolving this case.

“During the CSWEI of the Facility, EPA’s inspectors observed: (a) Outdoor raw material storage, outdoor chipping and mixing operations, fuel storage, and equipment staging with several internal drainage ditches containing tannic colored water which flowed to a discharge point located on the southwest side of the Facility. (b) The Facility is a mulch production facility (SIC Code 2499 and 2875) but had not submitted an NOI for coverage under the existing Permit or obtained a No Exposure Certification.” Section IV, Finding of Fact 19 — EPA Compliance Stormwater Evaluation Inspection, July 10, 2019

• Inspectors saw visually contaminated water, described as “tannic colored,” actively moving through internal drainage ditches toward an outfall. This is not a hypothetical risk; it is documented observation of stormwater carrying industrial contamination.
• At the time of inspection, Florida Mulch had no permit and no certification. The facility was operating in full violation of the Clean Water Act’s permit requirement with no legal cover whatsoever.
• The No Exposure Certification is an alternative exemption available to facilities that can demonstrate their industrial materials are never exposed to rain. A facility with outdoor raw material storage, outdoor chipping, and outdoor fuel storage, as explicitly described here, is structurally ineligible for that exemption.

“Based on historic rainfall data available from the National Weather Service for this area, thirteen (13) days during the period of September 2019 to May 2020 had one or more daily rain events greater than 0.5 inches. In accordance with Section 402(p) of the CWA … the EPA has determined from the CSWEI, the hydrology of the Facility, and historic rainfall data that stormwater associated with industrial activity discharged from the Facility through a drainage ditch and outfall on the southwest side of the Facility on thirteen (13) days during the period of September 2019 to May 2020. The discharges were to Bull Creek, a traditional navigable water and water of the United States.” Section V, Alleged Violation 27(b) — EPA Violation Determination

• The EPA used National Weather Service rainfall records to establish, scientifically and legally, that every rain event exceeding the 0.5-inch benchmark during this period resulted in an unauthorized discharge into Bull Creek. This converts weather data into documented pollution events.
• Thirteen distinct discharge events in eight months is not a one-time accident. It is a recurring operational pattern during an entire rainy season, with no permit in place and no compliance controls active.
• Bull Creek is identified as a “traditional navigable water,” which carries federal protection under the Clean Water Act. The discharge was not into an isolated ditch; it was into a federally protected body of water.

“Respondent: (b) neither admits nor denies the factual allegations set forth in Section IV (Findings of Facts) of this CAFO; (c) consents to the assessment of a civil penalty as stated below; (e) waives any right to contest the allegations set forth in Section V (Alleged Violations) of this CAFO; and (f) waives its rights to appeal the Final Order accompanying this CAFO.” Section VI, Stipulation 29 — Terms of Settlement

• Florida Mulch simultaneously waived its right to contest the violations and refused to admit the underlying facts. This is the standard consent agreement construction that allows a corporation to pay and close the case without any official factual record of wrongdoing being established.
• By waiving appeal rights while denying nothing substantively, the company has ensured the case closes with maximum legal finality and minimum corporate accountability. The public record says the violations happened. The company’s position is legally ambiguous by design.

“Respondent consents to the payment of a civil penalty, which was calculated in accordance with the Act, in the amount of $35,000, which is to be paid within thirty (30) calendar days of the Effective Date of this CAFO.” Section VII, Term of Payment 33 — Penalty Assessment

• $35,000 is the total federal civil liability for 13 documented illegal discharges into a navigable waterway over eight months, at an industrial facility that operated without a permit for years. That is approximately $2,692 per illegal discharge event.
• The Clean Water Act allows penalties of up to $25,000 per day per violation under Section 309(g)(2)(A), the provision cited in this very proceeding. The settlement amount is a fraction of the maximum the law permits.
• Penalties paid under this agreement are explicitly stated to be non-deductible for federal tax purposes, which is the only punitive element that goes beyond a cost-of-doing-business calculation.

The Real Damage: Environment, Health, and Your Wallet

Environmental Degradation

The documented discharges were not neutral water. They were stormwater from an active industrial site carrying everything that accumulates in outdoor mulch production, fuel storage, and raw material stockpiling operations.

• Tannic colored water, the specific visual description used by EPA inspectors, indicates high concentrations of organic tannins and decomposition byproducts from wood material. Elevated tannins in waterways lower pH levels, reduce oxygen availability, and disrupt the ability of aquatic organisms to survive and reproduce.
• Fuel storage was among the documented operations at the facility, meaning industrial stormwater runoff carried a risk of hydrocarbon contamination. Even trace fuel residue in runoff can be acutely toxic to aquatic invertebrates and fish, which form the base of a creek’s food web.
• The discharges occurred across an eight-month period that spanned multiple rain events. This is not a single spill but a sustained pattern of contamination loading into Bull Creek, a waterway that flows as part of Florida’s interconnected surface water system in Osceola County.
• Industrial stormwater from facilities with SIC Codes 2499 (wood products) and 2875 (fertilizers/mulch) is classified as requiring permit controls precisely because it carries pollutants known to impair water quality. The 8-month unpermitted window represents the full wet-season cycle with no controls, no monitoring, and no reporting.
• No remediation or ecological restoration requirement appears anywhere in the consent agreement. The $35,000 penalty goes to the U.S. Treasury, not to any fund for restoring Bull Creek or studying the impact of the discharges on the waterway’s ecology.

Public Health

Industrial stormwater discharges into navigable waterways create layered public health risks that fall disproportionately on communities with the fewest resources to absorb them.

• Florida’s central corridor waterways are actively used for fishing, both recreational and subsistence. People who fish Bull Creek or downstream waters had no way of knowing that unpermitted industrial runoff had been entering the system during rain events, and no monitoring data was collected or made public during the violation period.
• Wood decomposition byproducts, fuel residue, and sediment from industrial yards can introduce heavy metals, biological oxygen demand loads, and chemical contaminants that affect both aquatic life and the people who consume it. The exact composition of the runoff was never independently tested and is not specified in the consent agreement.
• The absence of any permit during the violation period means there was no required monitoring, no required sampling, no required reporting, and no public disclosure. The community downstream from the facility had zero information about what was entering the water.
• Osceola County’s lower-income and working-class residents, who are more likely to depend on local waterways for food and recreation and less likely to have access to filtered water or alternative food sources, bear the concentrated end of that undisclosed risk.

Economic Inequality

The structure of this penalty exposes how environmental enforcement is calibrated to protect corporate operations, not communities.

• The Clean Water Act, under Section 309(g)(2)(A), allows penalties of up to $25,000 per day per violation. With 13 documented discharge days, the maximum statutory penalty available to the EPA would have been $325,000. The settled penalty of $35,000 is 10.8% of what the law actually allows.
• Florida Mulch hired a Rockledge, Florida attorney, Ryan Bird, to negotiate this settlement. The company had legal representation, a voice in the process, and access to the consent agreement structure. The communities downstream had none of that. Their interests were represented only by a federal agency whose budget has been the target of repeated cuts.
• The penalty is paid to the U.S. Treasury. Not one dollar of the $35,000 is designated for monitoring Bull Creek’s recovery, compensating affected residents, funding water quality testing, or restoring any ecological harm. The enforcement mechanism generates government revenue, not community remediation.
• A $35,000 fine for a company that operated without a legally required permit for years is a predictable cost of doing business. It creates no structural incentive for competitors to obtain permits proactively, because the cost of compliance almost certainly exceeds the cost of paying the penalty if and when the EPA ever shows up.
• The case took nearly six years from inspection to final order. During that time, the facility obtained its permit, entered a compliance order, and continued operations. There is no record in the consent agreement of any operational halt, production restriction, or suspension of business activity at any point during the enforcement process.

The Numbers, Translated

Who to Pressure and How to Act

The case is closed, but the patterns it reveals are not. Industrial facilities operating without required permits near Florida waterways is not a Florida Mulch anomaly; it is a structural enforcement gap that persists because the consequences are manageable and the process takes years.

Who Signed This Agreement

• Willard Palmer, President and CEO of Florida Mulch, Inc., 4754 North Kenansville Road, St. Cloud, Florida 34773. He is the named signatory on behalf of the company.
• Keriema S. Newman, Director, Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division, U.S. EPA Region 4. She signed for the complainant.
• Regional Judicial Officer Tanya Floyd signed the Final Order on April 28, 2025.
• Shawneille Campbell-Dunbar signed on behalf of the Complainant on April 11, 2025.

Regulatory Watchlist

• U.S. EPA Region 4, Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division, 61 Forsyth Street S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30303. This is the office that brought and settled this case. Public comments on consent agreements are legally required before they become final. Use that comment window.
• Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP). FDEP is the state agency authorized to administer the NPDES permit program in Florida. They have authority to conduct their own stormwater compliance inspections and issue state-level enforcement independent of EPA action.
• Waterways and Wetlands Enforcement Section, U.S. EPA Region 4. Contact: Lonnie Dorn, 980 College Station Rd., Athens, Georgia 30605, 706-355-8683, Dorn.Lonnie@epa.gov. This section initiated and managed the enforcement action.
• Osceola County Environmental Protection Division. Local county environmental agencies can independently monitor waterways and report concerns to state and federal regulators.

What You Can Do Now

• Use EPA’s EnviroFacts and EJScreen databases to look up industrial facilities near Florida waterways in your area. Cross-reference with FDEP’s permit database to identify facilities that may be operating without current NPDES stormwater coverage.
• Submit a public comment on any open EPA consent agreement during its public comment period. The legal authority for public input comes from 40 C.F.R. § 22.45; EPA is required to consider comments before a Final Order is issued. Your comment is part of the official record.
• Contact local mutual aid organizations and environmental justice groups in Osceola County and the St. Cloud area. Residents near industrial operations in lower-income areas are often the last to know about permit violations and the first to absorb the environmental cost.
• Demand that your Florida state legislators require mandatory public disclosure when industrial facilities in Florida receive EPA Notices of Potential Violation, so affected communities are notified before the case is quietly settled five years later.
• Support waterway monitoring citizen science programs in Florida, such as the Florida Lakewatch program through the University of Florida, which trains volunteers to collect water quality data from local waterways. More community monitoring means fewer enforcement gaps go undetected.
• If you fish, swim, or use Bull Creek or nearby Osceola County waterways, document your observations. Report any visual signs of industrial runoff, including discoloration, unusual odor, or dead fish, to FDEP’s 24-hour pollution hotline: 1-800-320-0519.