** 1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA CASE NO. 88-1886-CIV-HOEVELER UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) VS. ) ) SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT ) DISTRICT; JOHN R. WODRASKA, ) EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOUTH FLORIDA ) WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT; ) FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL ) REGULATION; AND DALE TWACHTMANN, ) SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ) ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION, et. al., ) ) Defendants. ) / DEPOSITION OF VINCE FARAONE TAKEN ON BEHALF OF THE PLAINTIFF *** DATE: August 27, 1990 PROFESSIONAL REPORTING SERVICE Commerce Center 324 Datura Street, Suite 303 West Palm Beach, Florida 33401 (407) 659-4046 ** 2 INDEX August 27, 1990 DIRECT CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS VINCE FARAONE By Ms. Beverly Nash 5 By Mr. Joe Richards 13 ** 3 The deposition of Vince Faraone, in the above-entitled and numbered cause, was taken before me, KAREN BAUER FRY, C.S.R., Court Reporter and Notary Public for the State of Florida at Large, at Professional Reporting Service, Commerce Center, 324 Datura Street, in the City of West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, in the State of Florida, beginning at the hour of 5:20 o'clock p.m., on August 27, 1990, pursuant to the Notice in said cause for the taking of said deposition, which is annexed to the Court file herein, on behalf of the Plaintiff in the above-entitled action pending in the above-named court. The appearances at said time and place were as follows: Beverly Sherman Nash, Esquire U.S. Department of Justice Environmental and Natural Resources Division P. O. Box 663 Washington, D.C. 20044-0663 Attorney for Plaintiff Joseph Richards, Esquire Peeples, Earl & Blank, P.A. Two South Biscayne Blvd. One Biscayne Tower, Suite 3636 Miami, Florida 33131 Attorney for Cities of Belle Glade and Clewiston ** 4 Katharine Stollman, Esquire Allison Burdette Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom 1440 New York Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005 Attorney for South Florida Water Management District Jackie Waters, Esquire So. Florida Water Management District Box 24680 3301 Gun Club Road West Palm Beach, FL 33416 ALSO PRESENT: Toni Lafuente Mike Rose David Buker ** 5 THEREUPON, VINCE FARAONE being by me first duly sworn to tell the whole truth, as hereinafter certified, testified as follows: DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MS. NASH: Q. Mr. Faraone, my name is Beverly Nash, and I'm counsel for the United States in this litigation. We are doing these depositions to understand how the Water Management District's computer systems are set up, how they're used, what data is on them, and how the data is formatted. You're here as a representative of the Water Management District having knowledge of one or more of the areas we are interested in. Have you been shown the list of categories? A. Yes, I have been. Q. Do you know to which items you're responsive? A. For items No. 2 and 6. Q. What is your present title or position? ** 6 A. Senior staff analyst. Q. In what division of the department? A. The department of research and evaluation, the staff division. Q. And what are your job responsibilities? A. My responsibilities are the budget for the department, the PC coordinator. I'm the one that handles the -- the focal point for the financial problems that come up between the department. Q. And how long have you been in that roll as senior staff analyst? A. Four years. Q. Have you had other positions at the Water Management District? A. Yes, I have. Q. And what positions are those? A. I was a Water Management Engineer III, and I was a Water Resources Engineer III. Q. What was your responsibility as a Water Management Engineer? A. My primary duties were to convert some of the programs that were on our HP system to the Cyber system. I'd review permits. Those were the two main categories. Q. And how long were you a Water Management ** 7 Engineer? A. Two and a half years. Q. What were your responsibilities as a Water Resources Engineer? A. I was responsible for writing computer programs of various engineering types. I rewrote programs to make it easy for technicians to use the programs that were being developed by other engineers. Q. And how long were you a Water Resources Engineer? A. Four years. Q. What is your educational background? A. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from the University of South Florida. Q. Do you have any other training in the computer area? A. No. Q. Who are your supervisors in the staff division? A. Mr. Pat Gostel. Q. Who? A. Pat Gostel. Q. And what is Mr. Gostel's title? A. He is the director of management and ** 8 administration. Q. Do you have any employees in the Water Management District that work for you? A. I have partial review or responsibility for one individual. Q. What is that individual's position? A. Staff analyst. Q What computers does the staff division utilize? A. Can you repeat the question, again? MS. NASH: Read it back, please. (WHEREUPON, the requested testimony was read back by the court reporter.) A. Again, clarification on that. All of the different machines that are used by the staff division? Q. (By Ms. Nash) Yes. A. We have IBM PCs, Xerox 6085, and we have terminals. Q. And which model IBM PC does the division utilize? A. The division has AT, PS/2, that's it. Q. What work is done on the IBM PC? ** 9 A. Are you referring to the work I do or the work other people do within the division? Q. What work do you do initially on the IBM PC? A. Okay. I primarily use it to write programs for the department. I access the IBM mainframe for financial information. Q. Do others in the staff division make other use of the IBM PC? A. Yes, they do. Q. Do you know what others use the IBM PC for? A. Primarily for developing spreadsheets for memos, a little bit of graphic presentations. Q. What use is made of the Xerox 6085? A. Primarily those are used for memos, presentations. Q. And you indicated that the staff division also utilizes terminals? A. Yes, ma'am. Q. Which terminals are those? A. I believe it's all a VT 330. Q. And what work is done on that terminal? A. Mainly memos. Q. What software is used on the IBM PC? ** 10 A. On whose PC? My PC? Q. Your PC to start with. A. Okay. I use Symphony, Word Perfect, Harvard Graphics and Quick Basic. Q. Are there other software packages that others within your division utilize on the IBM PC? A. I don't know. Q. What is the functions of Quick Basic? A. It's a programming language that allows me to develop my own coding to manipulate financial data or any type of data. Q. What software is used on the Xerox 6085? A. The package is called Viewpoint. Q. Do you know what software is used on the terminal you mentioned? A. The Word Perfect. Q. Do you personally use the Xerox 6085? A. Yes. Q And do you personally use the VT 330? A. Yes. Q. And you indicated that memos were done on both of those systems? A. Yes. Q. Is there a reason why one system is selected over the other for doing memos? ** 11 A. Machines were set up primarily for the different types of functions within the department and those were the machines that were best suited for the individuals. Q. Do all of these machines have networking capabilities? A. Yes, they do. Q. Are back-ups done on the work you do on the IBM PC? A. Yes. Q. Who does the back-up? A. Each individual is responsible for their own back-ups. Q. Are back-ups done on the Xerox 6085? A. Yes, they are. Q. Again, who does the back-ups? A. Well, there are two back-ups. There is one that the individual work station -- the user is responsible for their own back-ups, and the networked work file, that is sent to the server, is backed up by technical services. Q. The back-up is done on the VT 330? A. The terminals themselves don't store any data. They make connection to the exact system and that is backed up by technical services. ** 12 Q. What is entailed in your responsibility as PC coordinator? A. I attend meetings once a month to get information from technical services. I disseminate the information to responsible individuals within the divisions in our department. I become the focal point of problems that the departments may have with their individual computers. They will go through me and I will usually contact technical services, and vice versa if technical services has anything to disseminate, they go through me, and I put the information out to the department. Q. What systems do you use to transfer files from your division to others in the department? A. Can you repeat the question again? Q. Well, let me ask you the first question. Do you transfer files from your division to others in the Water Management District? A. Yes, I do. Q. And what systems do you use to transfer those files? A. I use the IBM system, IBM PC. Q. Do others in the staff division do nonfinancial work, nonbudget work? A. Repeat the question again. ** 13 Q. Do others in your division work on things other than budget and finance matters? A. Yes. Q. What areas do they work in? A. Personnel -- I guess contracts come under financial, that's all I can think of right now. Q. Do you work with contracts? A. I get involved. MS. STOLLMAN: That would be limited to what your work is on the computer systems. A. My only involvement is with the budget transfers that maybe coincide with the contracts. MS. STOLLMAN: On the computer? The budget transfers on the computer system? THE WITNESS: No. They're paper forms I usually initial that funds are available for budget transfers. MS. NASH: I have no further questions. CROSS-EXAMINATION QUESTION BY MR. RICHARDS: Q. Mr. Faraone, my name is Joe Richards. I represent the Cities of Belle Glade and Clewiston. ** 14 When did you become the senior staff analyst? A. September 1986. Q. Could you explain to me the functions of the staff division of the research and evaluation department? A. To the best of my knowledge -- would that be sufficient? Q. Yes. A. We're primarily responsible for the administration of personnel matters, financial matters, contractual matters, communications. Q. Communications with whom? A. Communications with various departments, finance administration, the executive office, technical services. Q. What is the purpose of these communications? A. Dissemination of district policies. Q. That would be of an administrative or financial nature, the policies? A. Not necessarily. Q. What other areas would that cover? MS. STOLLMAN: I would object to this line of questioning. I have given you some leeway ** 15 here, but I fail to see the relevance to the computer system. He's given you an overview of what the department does. I fail to see what going in to the specific areas -- MR. RICHARDS: I'm just trying to find out whether they do anything relevant to the lawsuit. MR. NASH: Katharine, everything relevant to the lawsuit is relevant to the computers as well. The people that should have been produced in this should have been people relevant to the lawsuit. MS. STOLLMAN: The people who have been produced pursuant to the notice of taking deposition are related to the computers and the content of the computer system at the district. MR. RICHARDS: I am just trying to find out if any of these communications are relevant to issues on the computer, which would be also relevant to the lawsuit, and he mentioned other areas, so I am just inquiring into those areas. Do you know? MS. STOLLMAN: Do you want your last question read back or do you want to ask another question? ** 16 MR. RICHARDS: Could you read back the question? (WHEREUPON, the requested testimony was read back by the court reporter.) Q. (By Mr. Richards) Other than policies regarding administration in a financial nature, did you address communications regarding other policies? A. I didn't hear what you said, sir. Q. Do you disseminate communications regarding policies of the district other than administrative and financial? A. Yes. Q. What would those other areas of policy be? A. They're outside my realm, so I don't know exactly what they are. Q. Who would know? A. I guess Pat Gostel. Q. And you also mentioned that others in your division work with contracts. What type of contracts would that be? A. I don't know the nature of the contracts. Q. Do you do any budget work regarding the ** 17 Everglades SWIM Plan? MS. STOLLMAN: This is work on your computer. A. The only work that I do with it is put the information into the system that for whatever dollars are required for that particular activity. Q. (By Mr. Richards) Who would provide that information to you? A. Typically the division director. Q. Do you know who specifically? A. It would be the director of water quality, Tom Fontaine, and the director of environmental sciences. They have two acting directors in that capacity right now. Q. Who are those people? A. Dewey Worth and Steve Davis. Q. Have you done any budget work for the Everglades Nutrient Removal Project? A. Repeat the question, please? Q. Have you done any budget work for the Everglades Nutrient Removal Project? MS. STOLLMAN: Again, this is on your computer system. A. The name doesn't ring a bell. Q. (By Mr. Richards) How about for the Holeyland ** 18 Restoration Project? A. No. Q. Rotenberger Restoration Project? A. No. Q. You also mentioned that your the focal point for computer problems; is that correct? A. Yes. Q. Would that be for the entire department, research and evaluation department? A. Yes. Q. In that capacity, are you aware of the accidental loss or destruction of any data files? A. Sometimes they bring that to my attention. Q. Can you recall any specific instances? MS. STOLLMAN: You can answer if you can recall any. A. I'm just trying to think of the data that you may be asking for. Oh, the I squared S system crashed not too long ago and some data was lost. Q. (By Mr. Richards) Do you know the nature of that data? A. No. Q. Who would know that? A. Dewey Worth. Q. Are you aware of any other lost data? ** 19 A. No. Q. You stated that you reviewed permits when you were a Water Management Engineer. What type of permits? A. They were surface water permits. Q. And what did you review those permits for? MS. STOLLMAN: I would object to this question. This doesn't have anything to do with the computer systems. MR. RICHARDS: Are you instructing him not to answer? MS. STOLLMAN: Unless it's relevant to your work on the computer systems, I would instruct him not to answer. Q. (By Mr. Richards) Is it relevant to your work on computer systems? A. No. Q. Are these permits contained on a computer? A. When I was doing them, no, they weren't. Q. Are they now? A. I don't know. Q. You also stated that you converted computer programs from the HP to some other computer. What type of programs? A. The only one that I can remember is the ** 20 Float Routing Program. Q. Do you know who was responsible for developing that program? A. No. Q. Do you know who utilized that program? A. No. Now or in the past? Q. Well, in the past. A. I can't remember who. Q. Do you know who uses it now? A. No, I don't. Q. Do you know who might know? A. No. Q. What division were you working in at that time? A. It was the surface water management division. Q. And you said while you were working as a Water Resources Engineer, you wrote computer programs. What programs? For what purpose? MS. STOLLMAN: Would you ask one question at a time, please? Q. (By Mr. Richards) What programs? A. I can't think of any offhand. Q. Do you know for what purpose they were written? ** 21 A. The one that I primarily remember is a user friendly version of what was referred to as the "Pop Model." Q. What was that used for? Do you know? A. I don't know what it was used for. Q. Do you know who utilized that program? A. There were technicians, some professionals. Q. In what division? A. Mainly the Water Resources Division and Environmental Science Division. MR. RICHARDS: That's all I have. Thank you. (The deposition was concluded at 5:45 o'clock p.m.)