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🌊 A berm collapse at an FPL solar site sent red clay silt into Wilkerson Creek, prompting environmental concerns and state investigation.
🏛️ State Senator Don Gaetz criticized the project’s engineering and pledged legislative action for greater public utility accountability.
📅 Local and state officials will meet with FPL on June 27 to address the damage and next steps for environmental restoration.
It was a balmy Saturday afternoon when I got a call I’d expected from Don Gaetz. The State Senator and I had played phone tag throughout the day as we attempted to have a phone interview about the situation near Wilkerson Creek and the FPL Kayak Solar Plant in the area.
The creek had suffered the worst effects of a recent berm blowout at a Florida Power and Light (FPL) Solar Power Construction Site that sent massive amounts of red clay silt into the creek – which is usually clear as the air in rural north Okaloosa County and has a bed made of the Emerald Coast’s famous sugar-white sand.
The day’s heat had begun to recede by the time we connected in the evening. The Senator had just walked out of Saturday night communion service at his church when he dialed me.
The way he spoke – you’d think the sermon that evening might be based on Hebrews Chapter 13 verse 17.
After all, while it wasn’t fire and brimstone, Senator Gaetz talked accountability on the phone.
“What’s occurred is a terrible washout resulting from the berms that burst when there was substantial rain. But what I think we are also seeing is the possibility that this whole project was not well-engineered,” Gaetz said,
“I think the engineering has to be challenged now. I think we have to go back and have another look at how this project was developed in the first place,” Gaetz said. He noted that this project needed and got both Okaloosa County and Florida Department of Environmental Protection permits before moving forward.
For the record, we reached out to request an interview with Okaloosa County Commissioner Sherri Cox, who represents this area. We are waiting for her to get back with us about an interview. If the past is any indication – it’s likely we will be waiting for a while.
We also asked for more information from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. We haven’t heard back from them – but we did get the warning letter they sent to FPL dated June 20. In it, Elizabeth Mullins Orr, the Director of the Northwest District, alerted FPL of a formal complaint. “During the inspection department personnel noted the following: failure of erosion control devices resulted in impacts to wetlands in Wilkerson Creek and violation of specific permit conditions,” the letter said, “please be advised that this warning letter is part of an agency investigation, preliminary to agency action in accordance with section 120.57 parentheses five), for the statues. We look forward to your cooperation and completing the investigation and resolving this matter.”
According to sources familiar with the situation, after a 14-day period, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection can initiate the shutdown of a construction site based on a violation.
That same source reports that a meeting is scheduled for June 27, at which various elected officials, including Okaloosa County Commission Chairman Paul Mixon, State Representative Nathan Boyles, State Senator Don Gaetz, and United States Representative Jimmy Patronis, will meet with FPL representatives to discuss the situation at Wilkerson Creek.
Florida Power and Light Representative Sarah Gatewood told us they are working to reinforce the berm with additionial materials as a way to avoid a repeat of the June 8 situation – after all, it rains a lot in Florida and We have hurricanes. Crestview is the 16th raniest city in America by volume – The Hub City gets about five feet of rain per year.
Gatewood added, when pressed about the failure of the berm, that the engineered dirt pile got all of the required permits and inspections from both Okaloosa County and The Florida Department of Environmental Protection. “We put in what was required by our permits already. We had in place what everybody expected to be the appropriate thing to protect against this from happening, but unfortunately, it did not. So that’s why we’re going back to the drawing board to come up with something better.”
This isn’t State Senator Gaetz’s first tango with the massive, publicly traded for-profit company – they earned $6.946 billion in net income in 2024, according to their investor statements. That was a leaner year for the company, as their net income dropped from $7.063 billion in 2023.
In the last state legislative session, Gaetz pushed a bill forward to limit the amount of profit a publicly traded utility can make pegging it to the United States treasury bond yield. Last year the 10 year treasury note yield between 3.9% and 4.6% depending on when you bought it. Next year energy had an 8% return in 2024.
Ultimately, other members of the state legislature, who received funding from Florida Power & Light for their election campaigns, were able to defeat the bill.
Either way, Gaetz wants accountability and transparency for the safety obligations he believes FPL owes people in the state of Florida.
“I think it is important to look at public utilities as not as businesses because they’re not. They’re government-granted monopolies,” Gaetz said, “And in return for the government granting the Monopoly, the utility is obliged to provide safety, is obliged to take all appropriate precautions, and use necessary prudence in all of their activities. I think it’s worthwhile having the Department of Environmental Protection check to make sure that it occurred.”
For now, the state senators’ team will work towards ensuring that Florida Power & Light cleans up the mess and reinforces their earthworks to reduce the risk of runoff to nearby bodies of water. Gaetz Notes that this”Epic fail “by Florida Power & Light can be the beginning of corporate responsibility from the company by ensuring that everyone involved in the incident is made whole.
However, the next legislative session, which officially begins in January 2026, but starts with committee meetings this fall, could be an opportunity for the state senator and other like-minded politicians to change the laws concerning public utilities.
“I expect that I will have legislation then that will again deal with public utility accountability. My hope is I’ll be able to get more support. There has not been a real appetite in the Florida legislature to hold FPL and other public utilities accountable. That’s because they have a lot of power. They spread a lot of money around. They have a lot of influence. But I don’t plan to give up,” Gaetz said.
Pro Communi Bono
