that following hurricane hermine. meanwhile, heads are rolling over the sewage scandal. mayor rick announced he is taking two employees off the job. 8 on your side's mark douglas is now live in st. peters burger with the breaking developments. mark, my understanding is these are not low level employees either. >> well, to the contrary, they are among the two highest ranking people at city hall working for the mayor. let me turn your attention to the se p of all this. the mayor has replaced his water resource director and the city engineer, both of them on unpaid leave and replaced them immediately with interim directors. both men played a fundamental roll in the flawed decision to take the treatment plant off line two years ago which led to the resent 150 million-gallon sewage spill into tampa bay. they also ignored warnings by a

the other sewage plants and saw this all coming. the mayor faced a blistering by state lawmakers yesterday and there's now calls for investigations all the way from here to washington. now, the roots of this problem goes back decades and the decision really based on how the city decided to spend the penny money on other things other than basic infrastructure other than what they're looking at. for segment. coming up at 6:15 tonight. >> thank you mark douglas, live. also tonight urging st. peters burger employees to report information about the sewage spills. he says his office will help with whistle blower protection for employees. congressman is even calling for federal investigation. >> the level of an e.p.a.

environmental impact. likely an investigation goes beyond that as well. >> congressman worked with the worker who blew the whistle on the report that predicted major problems with the sewage system. >> they kept it from neighbors, the community and the public. now, 8 on your side has confirmed mosaic and the department has kept hillsboro county government in the dark the environmental protection commission had to knock on the state's door just to get information about the sink hole swallowing hundreds of millions of gallons of contaminated water. senior investigative reporter steve andrews broke the story wide open and joins us with more on the contaminated little secret. >> keith, our reports persuaded them to apologize for not informing neighbors for the environmental catastrophe.

remains silent about its silence. when this hole swallowed 215 million gallons, it dumped them. neighbors in lithia like james maxwell are on edge. >> i'm scared to death what its already done to me and them. >> my neighbors are here. >> in addition to keeping neighbors in the dark waited until the 11th disaster to contact the commissioner stacey white. >> i was briefed by the official in the evening at. >> even the agency that helps guard the environment was kept in the dark. >> we did not hear from mosaic. we heard from the news like everybody else. >> what's more shocking is florida's department of environmental protection as well. >> we were not notified by d.e.

we heard the news. >> deputy secretary gary clark laughed it off when we confronted him about d.e.p.'s black out. >so tell me, why should the department have done more? >> what's not so funny is the contaminated water that escaped into the aqua. it's acidic. >> it's nasty processed water and that's why you don't to the environment. >> mosaic is working to recover the contaminated water. if you detect a smell, taste or color in your water, don't drink it. get it tested. >> that being said, i would also keep looking at the monitoring report for years and years and years to come. >> years and years and years to come. that's pretty funny too isn't it mr. deputy secretary.

today said their excuse for not informing the public is appalling. that's an excuse we expect from the special interest group. i couldn't agree more. >> i think everybody involved knows they blew it on this. now the governor is weighing in and what's he doing aside from saying let's look into it? >> the governor ordered d.e.p. to expedite its investigation and water quality test to the department of health to partner with d.e.p. to make sure all the drinking water in the area is safe. one more thing you want to do is appoint a d.e.p. secretary. >> absolutely. thank you for staying on it and breaking the story. a reminder they have hired an outside company to test the private wells of the homeowners in the area. the first round of test results came back today and so far, the

if you want to keep checking for years and years to come as steve pointed out, you can request a water test from mosaic. there's the number. we also have this number posted on our web site wfla.com. >> new tonight, a shocking scheme to poison her teacher. a 13-year-old girl arrested accused of grinding up chalk and putting it in her teacher's coffee. another student warned the ac out of the drink. we are joined life. the sheriff's office and school taking this very, very seriously. reporter: well, good evening, stacey. officials say that knowing that this student did this intentionally is worrisome. deputies walked through the center wednesday, a day after a student was arrested for trying to poison her teacher. >> thinking that a student

that may or may not have serious physical effects is stunning. >> district leaders say the 13- year-old ground a piece of chalk in the powder friday and slipped it into the teacher's coffee. officials say the student distracted her before making her move. she then left the class room to get on her bus. it was another student who stopped the teacher from taking a sip. >> if she hadn't witnessed it and stopped the teacher from teacher could have became ill. >> she told deputies she hated the teacher. parents we spoke to can't believe it. >> i can't imagine a student so unhappy with their teacher she would want to poison her. >> teachers today live in fear of their students sometimes. it's frightening because the parents aren't backing teachers the way they should. >> it's troubling when any student takes action that could physically harm a teacher.

clearly, this little girl has troubles that hopefully, she can get help for. >> now, the achieve center for pasco is a center, a school for troubled teens or troubled students. this teen will no longer be a student here. the district is going through the process of expelling her. as for the teacher, she's okay and we were told by the district, she was back at work >> live in pasco county, thank you. >> still to come, he's been terrorizing store clerks. >> now the sheriff wants him behind bars. coming up, the story this paint ball robber keeps going back to. >> warming temperatures for most locations because showers and thunderstorms have not cooled off the area today. we've seen a few isolated showers. we'll look at the radar and the forecast for the rest of the

. it's captain mike anderson and i would like to introduce you to our great outdoors partner. . polk county needs help tonight tracking down a robber. three different robbers at the same store. it's a circle k store in winter haven. on two occasions a guy came in with a paint gun. in one of the robberies, the

and quiet frankly, we're sick of him and we want him in the county jail. >> that fourth robbery was at the cvs across from the street at the circle k he keeps hitting. no one was hurt during any of robberies. >> clear water police receive special training this afternoon for a drug that could help save lives. dozens of officers learned how to use narcan. clear water enforcement agency to use it. to start out, they'll equip 50 police officers with the narcan kits. >st. pete's sewage scandal has taxpayers frustrated. >> a report that you paid for. coming up, mark douglas follows

i'm hillary clinton and i approve this message. i know more about isis then the generals do. john mccain, a war hero. he's not a war hero, he's a war hero because he was captured. i like people that weren't captured ok. two parents who lost their son in war. how would you answer that father? what sacrifice have you made for your country? i think i've made a lot of sacrifices, built great structures. i've had tremendous success, i think...

. the growing of sewage dump investigations and the change at city hall raises questions, serious questions about what you paid for with your taxes. now, mark douglas has been raising the question for weeks and now so are others. mark is live at the sewage treatment plant tonight where he was earlier this evening. this really is the epi center of this whole problem.

imnighting from the commission. the treatment plant across the field there has actually been brewing for decades. it has everything to do with how st. peters burger and other governments have spent the penny and other tax money that you paid for. >> it looked at future projected wet weather flow. it concluded albert should stay open. gibson ignored that advice and the city ended up with several sewage dumps. most recently, 150 million gallons worth. the root of this problem really began decades ago with the sales tax. >> it was designed for infrastructure. it's so interesting. >> local government leaders

tax on bridges, parks and recreation and not nearly enough on less glorious projects related to sewage and drainage. the first decade, that penny tax raised $826 million. a billion and a quarter the next 10 years. before the decade is up another billion and a half. >> penny for an infrastructure. i'm not sure when the recreational and cultural got put into it. >> local governments have spent more than $3 billion in sales taxes that you paid for. cities like st. pete , clear water and largo have done almost nothing to prevent the flooding we're seeing now. >> it's a question we raised weeks ago. >> should somebody be fired for

point? >> it got to this point from a lot of years of in some ways in action. >> well, mayor is taking action now removing his city engineer and water resources director today in a move that's clearly related to the blistering he's relating from here to washington, keith? >> he showed how the penny was spent. what about the changes going forward in th is the city going to change the way it's going forward? >> for starter, the mayor wants to increase the storm water fee and they've already decided to spend $58 million on sewage treatment improvements this coming year. that's just the beginning of it because everybody's looking for state money on top of that. >> mark's on it because you paid for it. thank you, mark. >> lakeland got over a half

automall. polk county 80 degrees. temperatures falling at this location. lucky because not everyone was able to get that amount. 77 degrees and nice to see that temperature fall at that location. our temperatures have fallen in some spots today and not widespread. warm side jumping in the pool there. 85 degrees with an east wind at 6 miles 64% relative humidity at that spot. a few showers and thunderstorms rolling around. strong thunderstorms south of there and north of the lake and up i-75. we seen them on either side of the interstate. in particular, the south part of pascoe there. central parts, that's about it. great pictures. this is from sherry allison on her flight to colorado today. this is just taken out the

nice shot there. got to be prepared for the rain. 7:00 a.m., 77 degrees. sunshine mixed with clouds and currently 87 degrees. same number, tampa. there's rain cooled numbers. 90 crystal river. dry air aloft. that's playing a big part stabilizing the atmosphere. tropical depression not as oppressive. intensity has been a problem. at least with this one, tropical storm lisa will be an environment long term and maybe a tropical depression and neither effects the u. s. we

this evening. dry air high above does help stabilize the atmosphere. fewer showers scattered about. sunny start and near average temperatures 77 degrees and above the average level. the rain chances too are slightly below normal at 20%. thursday, friday and for saturday, keep in mind the average rain chance here in late september about 30%. so we see the 20%, that means we're slightly below that. temperatures near 90 degrees higher rain chances long term. temperatures stay warm there including the first day of fall which starts tomorrow and all the way to the weekend. not a bad weekend ahead. fairly summer-like even though it's fall. >> and the tampa bay rock is coming up.

>> coming up next in sport, this saturday's clash between usf and florida state features the best running back in the country. >> speaking of running backs, the bucks will be without their main man for a while. find out how to offense plans

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. we'll have to wait on that.

duo picking up the workload. charles similars the proven back up. he runs taller and catches the ball well and rogers right there who got into the game last week against the cardinals has enjoyed success playing under head coach. >> i got thrown in the fire last week. i was ready. to me, my goal is to get more familiar with the play book so i can go out and play with spee >> they're similar in a number of ways in that they're both good and catching the ball in the back field. can run with power when needed and we're excited. i don't see an issue with us being able to run the ball this week based on who our tail backs are. >> after last sunday's 40-7 loss, bucks head coach cutter revealed that the team had sloppy practices during the build up to the arizona trip. human nature or not, last week,

big win and got burned. lesson learned, perhaps. quash winston doesn't want to remember what happened a week ago. >> any time something negative happens, everyone wants to point fingers. as an overall team, you lost. we got to try to find a way to fix that. last week is over, you know, we're not focused on last week. we're focused on playing better this week and having better practices. >> and before the bucks rams kick off on sunday, they play host to saturday's show down between usf and florida state. this is a running back dream come true. 137-yards away from becoming usf's all time rushing leader going up against florida state's cook whosize man hopes took a big hit last saturday when he steals the heart of the

recruit for usf. >> at the time we had our running back coach coaching in high school. >> thanks. >> finally, tonight, the 2017 strawberry festival has a theme. drum roll please, we're in the poster featured a strawberry rocking out the guitar. organizers tells us this year's theme highlights the entertainment. the line up won't be announced until mid-november. >> short cake will be there. >> thank you. >> shakes you name it, anything with strawberries, good stuff. don't go anywhere. nightly news is next. >> josh and jenn at 8:00 on great 38. we'll be back here tonight at

tonight violent protests, charlotte police plea for calm after demonstrations erupt over another deadly police shooting. tonight the conflicting accounts of that fate allen counter. terror trail -- chilling new surveillance of the suspect handling a suitcase before as the fbi releases new images of two men it's seeking tonight. plus the first look inside the suspect's bloody notebook. trump and race, the candidate drops a racial epithet. epipen outrage, an embattled ceo defending a 400% price hike on a life-saving device to