Class Action Against Fort Myers, FL Seeks Court Order to Remove Contaminated ‘Sludge Dump’ in Dunbar Neighborhood

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A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed against the City of Fort Myers and its mayor and city manager in which four plaintiffs seek a court order requiring the city to remove “arsenic contaminated sludge, soil, and groundwater” from a property taking up one city block on the south side of South Street. The 37-page complaint alleges the open dump maintained at the location—between Midway and Henderson Avenues, in the Dunbar neighborhood—violates the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), a statute the lawsuit explains authorizes private citizens to “sue those responsible for disposal of any solid or hazardous waste” that could pose a health or environmental danger.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, drinking water pumped from wells in Lee County near the Dunbar area was treated by Fort Myers with lime to remove contaminants, the lawsuit says. In roughly the same time period, Fort Myers allegedly pumped water from the Caloosahatchee River and discharged it onto the surface of the ground at the wells to recharge the wellfield. According to the complaint, the well water’s lime treatment “produced tons of lime sludge, which was and is contaminated with arsenic.”

The lawsuit goes on to note that the Dunbar neighborhood of Fort Myers is a predominantly African-American community, “with almost one-third of the population living below the poverty level.” According to the plaintiffs, the city has dumped “at least 25,000 cubic yards” of sludge in this particular area. As the years passed, the case continues, plots of land were purchased for residential use, including by two of the plaintiffs.

“The City never disclosed to any buyers that the property had been used as a Sludge Dump,” the lawsuit alleges, claiming the site fails to meet the RCRA’s guidelines for a solid waste landfill. “The Sludge Dump was neither lined to prevent migration of arsenic into groundwater nor covered to prevent the sludge from migrating to the air and surface water.”

Though the city reportedly got the wheels moving on addressing the environmental hazard in the Dunbar area back in 2007, the plaintiffs claim that at no point between then and 2017 did Fort Myers notify residents of the arsenic-contaminated soil and possibly contaminated groundwater. 

“Instead the city allowed [the plaintiffs] and community members, including children who were known to play on the Dunbar Site, full and free access to the contaminated Dunbar Site, until after June 2017, when the press released this story to the public,” the complaint reads. 

In addition to monetary relief, the lawsuit seeks funds from Fort Myers to pay for medical monitoring for those potentially exposed to arsenic as a result of the city’s disposal of the sludge at the Dunbar site.