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Senator Files Landfill Bill Aimed At Dade City Site

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By NICOLA M. WHITE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 5, 2007

State Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, weighed in on the Dade City landfill controversy Tuesday, filing legislation that would severely restrict where new landfills could be built in Florida.

His legislation would prohibit solid waste facilities from being built within a mile of certain bodies of water. It's a move he says would ensure the purity of the state's water supply.

If passed, it also could kill plans by a private company to build a 90-acre household trash facility on the outskirts of Dade City. That landfill site sits less than a mile from the Withlacoochee River.

"As our population grows and as the need to deal with our population grows, we need legislation to address the availability of our potable waters," Crist said. "If we have a problem now in our neck of the woods, sooner or later there's going to be a problem everywhere else."
Florida law prohibits new construction of landfills within 3,000 feet of potable water supplies. The law does not include bodies of water that are used for recreation or those designed for the preservation of fish populations.

Crist's bill not only would widen the no-landfill zone, but also encompass nonpotable bodies of water.

Local landfill critics, who have been speaking at city and county government meetings and waging a letter writing campaign, cheered Crist's proposal.

"I think that's definitely a positive, positive move on his part," said Carl Roth, spokesman for the citizen's group, Protectors of Florida's Legacy.

Crist's bill is likely to face tough critics of its own, though, who may see it as overly restrictive. The bill, for example, would bar from operating landfills groups that have incurred violations related to hazardous, biomedical or PCB waste from the state Department of Environmental Protection in the past three years.

The bill is unlikely to sail through the Legislature as written, Crist conceded. But it will get the ball rolling.

"That's what this does: It takes a local issue, elevates it to a state issue for a larger realm of debate and consideration for new or more contemporary ideas," he said.

John Arnold, the engineer for the Dade City landfill proposed by Largo-based Angelo's Aggregate Materials, declined to comment on Crist's bill because he hadn't seen the full text. He stood by the safety of the proposed landfill, and noted the recent endorsement of the Nature Coast Sierra Club.

"I think everyone recognizes the Sierra Club as a premier environmental group and watchdog in the country," Arnold said. "The new solid waste technology, it's not land-filling; it's recycling, composting."

Many of the landfill's critics have been pushing Pasco County to expand its waste-to-energy incinerator as an alternative to the landfill, but some environmentalists question the air pollution produced by incinerators.

The landfill application is being reviewed by the DEP, which has been combing through the application and asking questions for at least a year. A spokeswoman for the department declined to comment on Crist's proposed legislation.

Reporter Nicola M. White can be reached at (813) 779-4613 or nwhite1@tampatrib.com.

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