TALLAHASSEE — Last year, the state of Florida spent nearly $30 million to purchase more than 11,000 acres of land from the powerful Collier family near Everglades City to protect it. Now, a former employee of Parker J. Collier — the matriarch of the family that gave Collier County its name — is claiming that most of that land is toxic.

In a federal court lawsuit filed late last week, Sonja Eddings Brown, a former Collier employee, claims independent testing has shown that at least 8,000 acres of the land being sold is likely contaminated with creosote, a chemical wood treatment, left over from a 1956 fire that the family claims never cleaned up.

According to the U.S. Centers for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, long-term exposure to creosote can cause birth defects and cancer. Brown claims Collier never reported the contamination to the state.

“This case concerns Parker Collier, a businesswoman and matriarch of a powerful Florida family, and the unlawful acts she committed to enrich herself by organizing the marketing and sale of 8,000 acres of land in the Everglades contaminated with deadly creosote,” Brown's unsealed complaint states.

Collier denied the allegations entirely through a spokesman to the Times/Herald.

“This claim is baseless and completely without merit,” the spokesperson wrote by email. “We categorically deny all allegations made against us and will vigorously defend our position and reputation, using all legal remedies at our disposal.”

The lawsuit is part of a larger employment dispute involving Parker Collier. The suit alleges that Parker Collier misrepresented the contamination of the Green Heart of the Everglades area to Brown when she proposed it to the DeSantis and Trump administrations in 2020. Brown claims Parker Collier then fired her when she began asking questions about the contamination while also raising concerns about corruption in a separate development deal in Collier County.

It's unclear whether Brown's allegations of pollution on the Collier land — which was sold to the state as part of 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 is home to 39 threatened or endangered species, such as the American crocodile, black bear and Florida panther, according to a project summary.

A spokesman for the South Florida Water Management District, which purchased the land on behalf of the state, told the Times/Herald in an email that a “comprehensive environmental assessment” of the land was conducted before the transaction, as is standard practice. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the governor's office declined to answer other specific questions. The governor's staff referred the newspaper to the district for more information.

Ernie Cox, a lobbyist for the nonprofit environmental group WildLandscapes International, which brokered the state's purchase of the land, disputed the land's toxicity and said the district's environmental impact assessment addressed creosote contamination on land not included in the property sold to the state.

“The people who do (these assessments) are knowledgeable and have reviewed all the backups. They seem to have concluded that this was cleaned up many years ago and is not a problem,” Cox said.

He added: “If there had been a problem, WildLandscapes would have addressed it.”

Cox said he never worked with Brown on the land sale. The lawsuit says Brown was fired in 2020 during early promotion of the sale. When the land was sold to the South Florida Water Management District, she was no longer involved.

The Times/Herald reviewed the environmental impact assessment, which notes previous creosote contamination in the unincorporated area of ​​Jerome, about 150 feet east of the property sold to the state, but citing government reports, indicates that has since been remediated. No physical samples were taken for the report.

Brown claims she conducted her own environmental testing in May and June on the land adjacent to the property sold in Jerome, which was reviewed by a toxicologist. Those tests found the land to be toxic, indicating that much of the land in the Green Heart of the Everglades is likely toxic as well, she claims.

“Recent investigations of the land immediately adjacent to the Everglades property indicate that creosote-related contaminants remain on the land and in drinking water to this day,” Brown's complaint states.

A brief history of toxic soil

Jerome is a small, rural area in Collier County on the edge of the Everglades, north of Everglades City and Copeland. Built around 1920, it housed employees of the CJ Jones Lumber Co., the “largest manufacturer of treated wood products in the southeastern United States,” according to Brown's complaint.

According to the lawsuit, CJ Jones leased the land from a company owned by the Collier family.

A 1956 fire exploded 3,000 gallons of creosote while the company was shut down, according to the lawsuit and the district's environmental impact assessment.

Decades later, Jerome residents continued to complain about the quality of their water, the complaint states.

In 1990, the then Florida Department of Environmental Protection, pursuant to a settlement between a Collier family company and the state, ordered the Collier company to clean up the land and provide the city with alternative drinking water.

In 2003, dozens of Jerome residents still believed their water was contaminated with creosote, the Naples Daily News reported at the time, and sued the Collier family's company.

According to Brown's lawsuit, the Collier companies have reached an agreement.

Brown's physical samples of the land adjacent to the property sold to the state were examined by James Dahlgren, a toxicologist who rose to fame when he helped Erin Brockovich expose an energy company's role in contaminating California's water in 1993, according to the lawsuit. The samples show that Jerome's soil and drinking water are still contaminated and therefore the surrounding areas are likely still contaminated, including much of the land sold to the state, Brown claims.

Dahlgren concluded that “the water and soil surrounding Jerome and Everglades City are contaminated and must be remediated or they will remain a source of toxic waste for hundreds of years,” Brown's lawsuit states.

The Times/Herald requested an interview with Dahlgren, but he was unavailable at the time of publication.

In addition to the extensive nationalization of the Everglades ecosystem, there will also be no more mineral mining or oil drilling in the “Green Heart of the Everglades,” as the Collier family companies have also sold these rights to the state in accordance with the purchase agreement.

The Green Heart of the Everglades is “one of the few subtropical regions in North America” ​​and “is known to be home to up to 44 native orchid and 14 native bromeliad species, including one of the world's rarest plants – the ghost orchid,” the project summary states. 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 landmass is unique and irreplaceable,” says a May 11 memorandum from the South Florida Water Management District about the project. “The ecological values ​​of these lands are extraordinary, as are the ecosystem services these lands provide.”

The memo continues: “This acquisition has broad public support and represents an incredible opportunity to improve water quality, enhance habitat connectivity, coordinate management with adjacent conservation areas, and protect these areas forever.”

Cox, the WildLandscapes lobbyist who coordinated the sale, expressed concern that Brown's allegations would create unnecessary controversy over a purchase he considered flawless.

“I'm concerned that someone is going to claim that this transaction was not carried out properly,” Cox said. “They're claiming that (the creosote contamination) was concealed. But that wasn't the case.”

Herald reporter Gabriela Henriquez Stoikow contributed to this report.