TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Dade City Area Landfill Plan Raises A Stink

ADVERTISEMENT

By STEVE ANDREWS

sandrews@wfla.com

Published: February 3, 2009

DADE CITY - Linda Cluey grows new varieties of roses on her 6 acres on Osteen Lane. She has lived there 20 years. Cluey loves her pastures, her barns, the quiet and the fresh air.

But she worries about a plan to put a landfill a half mile from her property, saying it could 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 beyond Cluey's property. It could threaten the drinking water for Tampa, landfill opponents say. They say the landfill's location is a problem, and the developer's testing of the site has been criticized by 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 trash an average of 150 feet high. The project eventually 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 trash at the planned dump decomposes, neighbors and environmental groups say, the leachate will seep into the Floridan Aquifer and the Green Swamp.

A permit for the landfill project would come from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which will decide the issue on Feb. 12. The department appeared ready to approve the landfill in January 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 likely would be years away, company officials say.

Angelo's project manager John Arnold said the company intends for the engineering to be top-notch.

"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 generate 12,000 pounds of pressure per square foot, he said.

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

"Liquids that fall onto 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 would be 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 would be a 5-foot-thick 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.

Iorio Voiced Concern

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 at risk 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 the permits needed to operate.

Bill Blanchard's family owns nearly 2,000 acres near the landfill. He is 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 a moderate probability of a sinkhole forming in the landfill.

To answer his questions about sinkhole concerns, Blanchard hired SDI Environmental Services to review 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 Angelo's submitted to the DEP. She noticed that about 40 percent of Angelo's soil borings never reached limestone or solid rock. One soil boring went to169 feet and did not 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 additional 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.

Can't Afford To Be Wrong

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

In 2004, two piers for the elevated portion of the expressway sank during construction. In April 2004, one section dropped 11 feet, causing a portion of the span to collapse. Construction was halted after the second pier settled in July 2004. An independent test found that 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 into 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.

"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.

News Channel 8 reporter Steve Andrews can be reached at (813) 221-5779.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT