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MOUNDS OF MULCH

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By LINDSAY PETERSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 11, 2008

Day after day for the past two years, trucks full of chopped up yard waste dumped their loads on a piece of land that included a sensitive wildlife habitat in south Hillsborough County.

The owner received $30 per load for dozens each week. She didn't need to get a permit or meet any regulations as long as the spread-out mulch remained less than 2 feet thick.

But it didn't.

In March, county records show, the mulch was more than 6 feet high across much of a 60-acre parcel; piles reached 10 feet in some spots. County officials said the property violated state solid waste laws and damaged a county-protected wildlife habitat.

It happened because the state and county regulators allowed it. And they aren't imposing any penalties or cleanup requirements on property owner Dianna Williams and property manager Paul Savich.

In April, county environmental regulators gave Williams and Savich two months to bring the mulch down to 2 feet across the property. But last month, the state exempted the pair from the 2-foot rule. The state's decision increased their limit to 5 feet across an area covering more than 600 acres, including dozens of acres of sensitive land.

County regulators could have dealt with the problem several months ago when they received complaints about the piles of mulch on the property, but officials concede that inspectors bungled the task by not monitoring the situation closely enough.

The episode raises questions about the growing amount of yard waste being produced across the state and who regulates and monitors its disposal.

"This whole thing is kind of new," said Hooshang Boostani, director of the waste management division for the county Environmental Protection Commission. "Initially, the idea was to get rid of debris after hurricanes. But now we're finding out it is something that can be abused and misused. It's totally unregulated."

Records show that Williams received $30 for each load of mulch delivered to her property on Hobbs Road, southeast of Wimauma. She received about 80 to 120 truckloads per week.
Savich said he and Williams were preparing the Hobbs Road property to grow palm trees. He said he was shocked in March when the county environmental commission informed him he was in violation of state laws because an inspector had told him a month earlier that he appeared to be in compliance.

"We're not doing anything to hurt anything," Savich said. "We're doing something to farm. It's not our fault the inspectors let it slide."

The yard waste on Williams' property originated at Hillsborough County's facilities.

The county has a contract with Consolidated Resource Recovery of Sarasota to grind grass, leaves and tree branches into mulch and recycle or dispose of it. Last year, according to company records provided to the county, the company delivered 42,000 tons of mulch to Williams' property.

Despite the large deliveries, company officials said they believed Savich when he assured them he was staying below the 2-foot limit.

The limit was set in 2005 when the state Department of Environmental Protection was looking for a way to deal with the tons of yard debris left over from the destructive 2004 hurricane season. The agency decided to let anyone spread up to 2 feet of the material across their property without having to get a permit. Anything more than that, however, would be considered solid waste disposal and come under state regulation.

Complaints About Trucks, Smell

In 2006, Savich said, he and Williams decided to plant their tree farm, and he asked to start receiving mulch from the county. The deliveries began in the middle of the year. By November, the environmental commission had received two complaints, one about the number of trucks going in and out of the site and another about a bad smell there.

Environmental commission inspectors checked out the operation and confirmed that the mulch was being properly handled, a report said.

In December 2007, the commission received a third complaint, saying that the mulch was much deeper that 2 feet. In February, an inspector said he found Savich to be generally in compliance. The piles were high in spots, the inspector said, but Savich had said he planned to smooth them out.

Repeated complaints, however, sent Boostani to the site in March, and he found a serious problem, he said.

"What happened was, that first inspector had no dealings with this type of thing. ... He came back saying it's OK," Boostani said. "Whether it was an error, that is an interpretation. But the mulch wasn't really at 2 feet. It was 6, 7, 8 feet.

"I said to the guy, 'This is totally unacceptable. It's obvious you've gone way over 2 feet.'"

Warning To Stop Mulch Deliveries

The commission sent Savich and Consolidated Resource a warning, telling them to cease the mulch deliveries. Savich was given 60 days to meet the 2-foot limit. But when the deadline came, an inspection showed that the task was impossible. Savich had tried, but had too much material to handle. In one area, an inspector stood waist deep in spread-out mulch.

In the meantime, Savich had begun trying to get a state exemption allowing him to have 5 feet of mulch across his property. The state DEP offers the exemption to people who can show they need the material for farming or some other beneficial operation.

On June 2, the DEP denied Savich's request. He hadn't submitted a plan or any references showing that he needed more than 2 feet of mulch for his palm tree project, wrote Steven Morgan of the DEP.
Savich complained to DEP solid waste administrator Richard Tedder, who asked Morgan about it. Morgan replied that he didn't think the exemption was created for cases such as Savich's, in which a violation already had been committed.

"His efforts to get an after-the-fact approval of a 4-5 feet thick layer is to avoid having to comply with the county environmental commission's enforcement case," Morgan wrote in an e-mail July 7. Approving it would "undermine the enforcement action."

But Tedder had advised Savich to get a letter supporting his farm plan from a state agricultural agent. And on July 14, Alicia Whidden, a local agent with the state Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, provided that letter.

She said she wasn't familiar with growing palm trees but that, in general, mulch was good for farming because it added nutrients to the soil and conserved moisture.

Too Much Mulch For Palms

Research with palm trees, however, shows that they do poorly in more than a few inches of mulch, particularly if it is too close to the trunk. High levels of mulch can kill palms.

When asked about this, Whidden said she was a vegetable agent. "I told Mr. Savich I am not a palm expert. I could not address the issue of palms."

Nevertheless, a week after Whidden wrote the letter, Morgan approved Savich's request to exceed the state 2-foot mulch limit.

Morgan said the letter was the key. He considered it to be "a technical ruling on whether the application of 5 feet of mulch is a beneficial use." It didn't matter, he said, that Whidden had no expertise in the type of farming that Savich planned to do.

He said his approval wasn't intended to stop the county environmental commission's enforcement action. It stated that the exemption would apply only if the commission had no objections to it. "We're not making a value judgment on EPC's enforcement. What they decide to do is up to them," he said.

But the commission cited the Whidden letter and the DEP approval in an agreement it recently sent to Savich for his signature. It lets him spread his mulch at 5 feet on the Hobbs Road property and gives him 45 days to finish. It also gives him two years to plant palm trees on the mulched land or face future penalties. It didn't outline those penalties.
Wildlife Habitat Complaint

In a separate case, the county department of planning and growth management is handling complaints that Savich's mulch operation destroyed wildlife habitat and threatens more.

Some significant and rare habitat appears to have been lost, based on inspections and aerial and soil maps of the area, said John Schrecengost, of growth management. It's the type that of habitat is home to federally protected gopher tortoises. Savich won't be penalized, but he has to agree to work with the department to preserve the remaining sensitive land on his property.
Savich isn't happy about it, he said. If the county is going to limit the use of his land, he said, he should be paid for it. "But we agreed, and they were amicable. We're not trying to destroy anything."

The problem is the way government has regulated yard waste disposal under 2 feet, Boostani said.

"There is no oversight, so these people go and do things and we don't find out until someone calls and says there's a mountain over there. And by that time, it's almost too late to correct."

Reporter Lindsay Peterson can be reached at (813) 259-7834 or lpeterson@tampatrib.com.

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