by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
From a dam in Puerto Rico to the restoration of the Everglades to a dredging project here in Jacksonville, Al Pantano may have the most diverse job in town.
Al Pantano is Col. Al Pantano and he’s commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District.
Pantano has been in the Army for 22 years, primarily on the tactical side. His three-year Jacksonville assignment is his second in the Corps and he couldn’t be happier.
“We (he and his family) love it,” said Pantano, who’s been in Jacksonville about three months. “I have four young children and we bought a home in St. Johns County specifically because of the schools. We love the environment and the weather.”
That’s a good thing because Pantano spends plenty of time in the environment. Within any given week he may go from checking on the progress of Cerillos Dam in Ponce, Puerto Rico to standing knee-deep in the Everglades looking for Burmese pythons.
The lay person may not realize these are part of not only Pantano’s job description, but just a fraction of what the Corps does here in Florida and worldwide. To many, the Army Corps of Engineers helps build roads and cleans up after storms. While that’s certainly true, the Corps oversees thousands of construction and restoration projects and monitors the status of many, many more. Pantano says the Jacksonville District presents its own challenges because it stretches as far south as the Caribbean and as far west as the Panhandle.
“The districts vary. Jacksonville is more civil works while Savannah is very focused on military and construction,” said Pantano, who is from Massachusetts and graduated from Virginia Military Institute. He was commissioned into the Corps May 15, 1987. “We are the second largest district in the Corps. In Florida we have a very unique program.”
Pantano said Florida has the “most highly invested beaches” in the country. That means, he explained, more money is spent on beach preservation and restoration than anywhere else in the country because Florida relies heavily on its beaches to attract tourists and the valuable dollars they bring to the state’s economy.
Pantano’s job may be primarily in the field — he says typically he’s gone from Monday morning until Friday afternoon every week — he also oversees a staff of over 800 civilian and government employees.
“I am a federal officer assigned by the federal government to Florida and Puerto Rico,” said Pantano, who spent a year at the United States Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Penn. before being assigned to Jacksonville. “I also view my role as parochial. I want to do what’s best for the nation. That means the 50 states and the territories.
“At the end of the day, I want to make sure I have done the best i can to use federal dollars. Twenty percent of the Corps’ stimulus money was spent in Florida.”
That means the other 49 states and territories split the other 80 percent. Pantano says Florida got such much because its representatives in Washington, D.C. work hard on behalf of the state.
“They bring home the money for this state,” he said.
In addition to being a Colonel in the Army and an engineer by education and trade, running a district for the Corps is also about tact. Pantano said he has quickly learned that in virtually every project there are diverse interests.
“In order to do what I do on the ground, it’s about 80 percent about relationships. I meet with citrus growers, mayors, everybody. There are so many interests and they are diverging,” he said. “Take Lake Okeechobee. Everyone has an opinion. At the end of the day, someone is not going ot be happy.
“I try to be totally apolitical and do what’s right with federal money and the taxpayer.”
Pantano said he does get frustrated at times with the speed in which the federal government moves. However, there are times when that’s acceptable.
“In a lot of ways, bureaucracy is good,” he said. “You don’t know the results when you are dealing with the environment.”
Some U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District facts:
• leads the Corps’ single largest civil works project — restoring the Florida Everglades
• processes an average of 9,000 wetland permits annually, more than any other Corps district
• has 14 regulatory branch offices located throughout the state and Puerto Rico
• is restoring 40 miles of the Kissimmee River and reclaiming over 26,000 acres of flood plain wetlands
• is a member of the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force
The Jacksonville District constructed, operates and maintains:
• over 70 miles of shore protection projects in Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
• over 30 percent of the nation’s total shore protection projects
• Lake Okeechobee, 730 square miles and the nation’s second largest freshwater lake
• 60 navigation projects
• 14 deep-water ports
• six navigation locks
• 1,500 miles of shoreline
• 900 miles of inland waterways
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