Neighbors Upset Over Bringing Solid Waste Back To Community
By Jessica Clark
First Coast News
ST. AUGUSTINE, FL -- A St. Augustine community voiced their concerns about a dumping dispute in their neighborhood Thursday night.
A state investigation found the City of St. Augustine was taking waste from an old dumping ground in Lincolnville at the end of Riberia Street and illegally moved it a few miles away to a pit on Holmes Boulevard.
Now, the clean-up plan could bring the waste back to the original site. It’s an idea that is not sitting well with neighbors like Judith Seraphin.
“I don't want that dirt being brought back here. I'm worried about pollution. I'm worried about toxins,” Seraphin told First Coast News.
St. Augustine and the Department of Environmental Protection have negotiated a deal that would allow the city to bring some of the old household garbage and construction debris back to the site on the San Sebastian River and build a park on top of it.
City Chief Operations Officer, John Regan, said it would be done in an environmentally safe way.
“We'll have a two foot soil cap that has sloped conditions to prevent rain water intrusion into the material,” Regan said. He added the material would also have a vegetative cover, “and all these things prevent pollution migration.”
The city moved the material about two years ago to create three and a half acres of wetlands -- in exchange to build a marina development about a mile away.
Some neighbors like Seraphin don’t want the material returned but taken to a landfill instead.
However, Regan said, “The amount of money it would take to put this material in a landfill is the amount of money we would need to rehabilitate the property and solve the problem. So it's the lowest cost financial answer, and that's good for the community.”
But Seraphin said, “The city's trying to find the cheap way out by saying, ‘oh we'll just dump it in Lincolnville.’”
A neighborhood meeting took place Thursday night at a local church. A city meeting will take place in January.
First Coast News
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