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Questions, Worries Follow Proposed Landfill

Tribune photo by Fred Bellet

Linda Cluey says 20 years of idyllic rural living will be only a memory if a proposed landfill is built near her 6 acres in Pasco County.

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By STEVE ANDREWS | News Channel 8

Published: February 2, 2009

DADE CITY - Linda Cluey grows new varieties of roses on her six acres on Osteen Lane. She's lived here 20 years. Cluey loves her pastures, her barns, the quiet and fresh air.

But she worries that a plan to put a landfill a half mile from her property will spoil her solitude and little piece of paradise.

"There's going to be birds everywhere, rats, animals," she said.

Cluey is concerned about the landfill leaking and contaminating her well.

If the landfill leaks, the contamination could spread well beyond Cluey's property. It could threaten the drinking water for the city of Tampa, landfill opponents say. They say the landfill's location is a problem, and the developer's testing of the site has come under criticism from a geologist hired by a local landowner.

The landfill that Largo-based Angelo's Aggregate Materials wants to develop sits on three ancient sinkholes, about a mile from the Green Swamp in eastern Pasco County. The company wants to develop 90 acres initially, stacking household garbage an average of 150 feet high. Eventually, the project could be expanded, as the 90-acre landfill is part of about 995 acres Angelo's owns in that area.

The Hillsborough, Withlacoochee, Peace and Ocklawaha rivers flow out of the Green Swamp. Those rivers provide much of central Florida's drinking water.

As garbage at the planned dump decomposes, then turns to liquid, neighbors and environmental groups worry the leachate will seep into the Floridan Aquifer and the Green Swamp.

A permit for the landfill project must first be approved by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which will decide the issue on Feb. 12. The department appeared ready to approve the landfill last month but postponed the decision to review new information from the opposition. The project also needs the county's approval.

Assuming Angelo's gets the needed permits, construction is likely years away, company officials say.
Angelo's project manager John Arnold said the company intends to build a highly engineered landfill.

"The whole idea is to provide multiple engineered barriers so that liquids don't get into the environment," Arnold said.

The 150-foot pile of garbage will put 12,000 pounds of pressure per square foot in the landfill, he said.

A liner system will cover the bottom. It will cover six, 15-acre sections.

"Liquids that fall on to this drain to a collection point where they are pumped without ever going into the environment," Arnold said.

Below the bottom liner, Arnold said there is a drainage net, and yet another barrier below that.

"Anything that got through your primary barrier layer would get into the leak detection system where it would drain out where it's collected and pumped into tanks," Arnold said.

Below the leak detection system will be a five-foot barrier of clay.

"If you poked a hole through all of these layers, we've calculated that it would take one drop of fluid 500 years to get to the bottom of the clay layer," Arnold said.

SINKHOLE CONCERNS

It's not that kind of hole landfill opponents worry about.

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio wrote a letter to the DEP in 2007, expressing her concerns that the landfill sits in an area prone to sinkholes. If a sinkhole opened beneath the landfill, Iorio said, it might pollute the aquifer and put the city's water supply in danger of contamination.

Pasco County municipalities also oppose the landfill. Paso County commissioners have decided to avoid an expensive court fight if the landfill is approved. They say they will address the proposal when it comes before them for land-use changes and permits needed to operate.

Bill Blanchard's family owns nearly 2,000 acres near the landfill. He's worried the landfill's bottom might fall out.

"They are literally proposing to build this inside a sinkhole," Blanchard said.

A Florida Geological Survey review found the probability of a sinkhole forming in the landfill site is moderate.

To answer his questions about sinkhole concerns, Blanchard hired SDI Environmental Services, Inc. to review the geological data submitted to the state by Angelo's.

Cathleen Jonas, a geologist with SDI, found the landfill would sit on three relic or ancient sinkholes.

"They are dormant and not moving right now, but that doesn't mean they can't become active," Jonas said. "It's kind of like a volcano. They could become active again."

Jonas said she reviewed documentation submitted by Angelo's to the DEP. She noticed that about 40 percent of the soil borings Angelo's drilled never reached limestone or solid rock. One soil boring went to169 feet and never hit limestone. Another boring, 500 feet away, went down 139 feet and never found solid rock. That, she said, is typical of a large sinkhole feature.

Jonas contends the data in the DEP's files leaves a lot of questions unanswered about the geology of the site. She thinks more technical work is needed because many other borings did not go far enough into rock.

"Particularly in light of putting a landfill on that area, I would want to know if there are any voids at the top of the rock," Jonas said.

Blanchard compared the landfill's engineering work to the Crosstown Expressway collapse.

In 2004, two bridge piers on the elevated portion of the Selmon Crosstown Expressway sank during construction. In April 2004, one section dropped 11 feet, causing a portion of the bridge to collapse.
Construction was halted after the second pier settled in July. An independent test that found 154 of the project's 225 piers needed additional support.

"That's exactly what happened to the Crosstown Expressway; contractors found the top of rock but didn't go in to it to see if there were voids down there, and that's why it collapsed and it's our fear that will happen here," Blanchard said. "And unlike the Crosstown, there is no fix once that garbage stack drops into the Floridan Aquifer. There is no way to get it back out.

"We can't afford to be wrong on this one."

Arnold defends his company's engineering work.

"Going to lime rock isn't always what engineers are looking for," Arnold said. "The vast majority of our deep borings made it to limestone in the locations that we wanted to take them to limestone."

As for the sinkholes, Arnold said they are stable and not active.

"We have what the geologists call relic, paleo sinks," he said. "All of our work has been peer reviewed, and experts outside of our project agree that this is an ideal site."

Ideal for Angelo's Aggregate Materials, but Linda Cluey begs to differ.

"The smell is going to be bad, and now with all the trucks and pollution," she said.

She awaits the state environmental agency's decision next week.

Cluey says she hopes the DEP is interested in protecting her environment.

Information from Tribune archives was used in this report. News Channel 8 reporter Steve Andrews can be reached at (813) 221-5779. His story on the landfill will air on WFLA at 11 p.m. tonight.

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