11/29/98Prophet or dreamer -- only the future will tell Resident warns engineers using wrong methods NORTH PORT -- History has many examples of individuals with advanced ideas or theories that seemed so outrageous to their peers, they were publicly humiliated. Sir Isaac Newton of England was one of them. How ridiculous to think that an apple falling off a tree is pulled downward by a mysterious force, many of his contemporaries guffawed. But who is laughing at gravity, now? Louis Pasteur of France was among those whose suggestions were received with outright laughter. How did a chemist dare suggest to medical doctors they needed to wash their hands before delivering babies to prevent infections? Pasteur was laughed right out of an assembly of the French academy of medicine, but no one is laughing at microbes (germs), today, and Pasteur gave the world its first rabies vaccination. Could there be a Pasteur or Newton in the Warm Mineral Springs community, just north of North Port? Warm Mineral Springs has already known once such person. He was the late Col. William "Bill" Royal, USAF Ret. An amateur archeologist and Scuba diving enthusiast, Royal made frequent underwater dives in Warm Mineral Springs, starting in the 1950s. For 15 years, Royal claimed, to no avail, he had found human prehistoric remains on a ledge at a depth of 30 to 40 feet in the 230-foot-deep warm water sinkhole, and also in Little Salt Spring, three miles away. Royal's persistence paid off, however. In the early 1970s, with emergency funding from the state Legislature, the underwater exploration of Warm Mineral Springs was started. Subsequently, a human skull and other fossils were dated at 10,200 years old by Radiocarbon 14 in three different laboratories around the country. The findings in the Warm Mineral Springs sinkhole were scientifically recognized as the "oldest documented" remains in the Western Hemisphere, and one government official spoke of Royal as "the man who rewrote the History of Florida."
Harbinger or dreamer
Fifteen years later, could it be that another Warm Mineral Springs resident is the likes of a Newton, a Pasteur or a Royal? A harbinger or a dreamer -- only the future will tell what Roy Stoner really is, but right now, he is desperately asking to be heard. So far, no one is listening, he said. Stoner warns -- if government officials and business leaders continue on the developmental road they are following -- it will lead to disaster for all Floridians. "Proper development, there is nothing wrong with it," said Stoner, who calls himself an engineer by avocation. "The technology is available, but nobody is following the rules -- nobody in government, business, regulators, politricksters, law enforcement ... " Stoner's background is in the handling of paper mill discharge. He said he moved to North Port 11 years ago, coming from Cape Coral.
Carrying a thick folder of letters, newspaper articles and other documents, Stoner voiced his warnings against carrying out plans he said are not working. Among the newspaper articles, the following topics are found: streets and sidewalk torn up during the two-year sewer installation in Cape Coral; North Port flood victims complain at city hall; growth is costing plenty to communities; why planners are mistrusted; the fear of injection-well waste rising; the need for desalination and much more. "If you take a wrong turn going home you never get home. Doesn't anyone understand this?" Stoner wrote. "Once a plan is found to be inoperative, do you continue on, or do you correct the plan? If you can (correct it), you do. If you can't, it must be discarded." Stoner said he made a presentation May 1, 1997, before the Sarasota County Planning and Zoning Board at a hearing on the proposed rezoning of a 68-acre property adjacent to the Warm Mineral Springs sinkhole. The developers had planned a holistic community of 300 apartments, 120-bed nursing home and a 68-bed facility for Alzheimer's patients, according to published reports. The bottom-fed spring is privately owned and operated as a spa. It has the reputation of being the "Fountain of Youth" explorer Ponce de Leon searched for.
Says moratorium needed
From a copy of his presentation, which Stoner provided, he spoke of the low elevation and of the alteration of the land over the past century in this "karst region" -- a limestone area with underground drainage and many cavities and passages caused by the dissolution of the rock. Stoner told the zoning board the free flowing springs are now gone and vegetation has died due to the widening and deepening of ditches and other changes. This caused the water table to drop and septic tanks to malfunction. Inundations occur frequently and the public water supply had to be shut down because of pollution, he told the board. Also in his speech before the board, Stoner alleged, "for years, truckloads of sand have been intentionally dumped into the springs proper (in violation of statute), thereby constricting the thermal water flow and decreasing the ambient spring temperature by three degrees." In conclusion, Stoner asked the board for a "total construction moratorium." The Warm Mineral Springs resident did not get his wish for a moratorium, but the rezoning request was rejected. Many local residents had opposed the project. Stoner also voiced concerns that wastewater injection wells will leak and pollute the very water residents of Florida are drinking. Such wells are dug at various depths throughout Florida to sink sewage after it has gone through a secondary treatment. The most basic treatment is "primary treatment" where the solids are removed. The secondary treatment goes further by removing most of the organic matter with the use of bacteria. This is what is allowed in injection wells. A tertiary treatment would render the effluent cleaner by removing more nutrient and with disinfection.
Way out or way ahead?
Stoner makes one claim that has those who hear him puzzled, to say the least. He says prehistoric people recognized the importance of Warm Mineral Springs, and they included it in a giant grid that included the pyramids and other early men's creations. His friend, Carl Munck, who developed this grid theory, says he knows why people don't believe Stoner. "He is so well educated, he has trouble putting things into terms you and I can understand," Munck said when contacted by telephone. The two men met more than 10 years ago, when Stoner read an article by Munck, and he contacted the author. Munck said he is retired. He was involved in drafting and mapping for the Air Force and later worked for the railroad, he said. A resident of West Virginia, Munck calls himself an "archaeocryptographer." "I decode pyramids," he wrote in a subsequent letter in which he notes "archaeo" means prehistoric, and "cryptography" means codification. Through a series of calculations and algorithms, Munck has come up with the theory that the pyramids and other ancient sites were not placed where they are at random, but they were "geodetic markers," relating to measurements of the Earth and its surface. Munck compared them to markers placed today by the U.S. Geological Survey. Furthermore, he finds a mathematical correlation between ancient monuments and three springs in Florida -- Warm Mineral Springs and Little Salt Spring, which is a couple of miles north of WMS. The third one is Mud Hole Spring, a stream of fresh water emerging at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Munck calls his calculations "Ph.D.-level material." Entering his name or the word "archaeocryptography" in search engines available on the Internet brings an article he authored and another about his research. A check with the Charlotte County Public Library shows that Munck also produced audio-visual material titled "The Code," "Code 2" and "Code 3." However, the videocassettes are only available in three out-of-state libraries. Video material usually is not shipped for inter-library loan because of damage caused by heat, according to library technician Candace Peterson.
Mathematical connection
By telephone, Munck gave an example of his calculations by using the prehistoric Stonehenge of England. The round structure is comprised of 30 huge stones standing upright and 30 lintels resting flat from one upright to the next. If you multiply 60 by 6, he said, you get 360, the number of degrees in a circle. "Can you imagine that anybody, 10,000 years ago, knew a circle is comprised of 360 degrees?" he asked rhetorically. Explaining further, Munck said multiplying 360-by-60 equals 21,600. Then, he said the latitude of Stonehenge is 51deg.10'42.35'' and suggests multiplying each set of digits by the next: 51 x 10 = 510. 510 x 42.35 = 21,598.5, or very close to 21,600. Munck said the ancient people are showing us they could calculate the latitude of a site from the equator, and they did it all with their pyramid system. He uses numbers found in various pyramids, such as number of steps, sides and other characteristics, and comes up with like similarities. Meanwhile, back in the unincorporated community of Warm Mineral Springs, Stoner has sent certified letters to government officials, and they either do not answer or are "strictly uninterested," he said. He showed a cartoon relating to proposed development published in a Sarasota newspaper. "This was the way we were portrayed by the media -- as rats for opposing developers," he said. Stoner also held a copy of "Sun Coast ECO Report." This publication by the nonprofit organization, Sarasota Environmental Report Inc., is free and 26,000 copies are published bimonthly. "It's the finest paper in the country, and nobody knows about it," he said.
'Internet U' for WMS
Stoner said he is not against all development. What he sees around Warm Mineral Springs is an "inter-net university." Stoner wrote the following about a university: "This has been operational for sometime, but lacking money and support, it is still in its infancy. This institute needs a home. The occurrence of two centers intersect constants, here in South (Sarasota) County, makes this an ideal location for specific technical reasons. Unfortunately, the priorities here are develop, build, fence, paint, pave or pour it down a water course. "This is no longer acceptable! "The institute, and the accompanying infrastructure needed to support it, will bring an economic boom, but first we must change our thinking. Should this be embraced, the paradigm would shift, and so would our reality." According to Stoner, the idea sounds far out, and this is why it has gone nowhere. "It's so threatening to the status quo and vested interests," he said.
You can e-mail Liliane Parbot-Johnson at parbotjohnson@sunletter.com
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