"It's not about compliance. It's about making things look like they're compliant. "
In 2003, when a leaky gypsum stack at an abandoned phosphate plant threatened to kill a vast cross section of Tampa Bay's marine life, Charles Kovach came up with a solution that saved the bay.
But this month, 17 years after he was hired by the state Department of Environmental Protection, Kovach was one of 58 DEP employees laid off by the agency. Kovach believes those layoffs were designed to loosen regulation of polluting industries.
"I've seen the way politics has influenced that agency in the past, but never like this," Kovach said. "It's not about compliance (with the rules). It's about making things look like they're compliant."
On top of the layoffs is the fact that DEP Secretary Herschel Vinyard has installed a number of new people in the agency's upper ranks whose prior experience was working as engineers or consultants for companies the DEP regulates.
Read more at the Tampa Bay Times.