City weighs landfill options

City weighs landfill options



KATI BEXLEY
kati.bexley@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 01/15/08


After months of public outcry, St. Augustine's City Commission decided Monday to research new options handling the city's illegal dumping of landfill material instead of returning it to a Lincolnville neighborhood site.

City staff will explore four new options, including leaving the material where it is, in a borrow pit on a Holmes Boulevard site, or removing the material, screening it with large equipment and taking out solid waste, and then entombing the leftover soil on the city-owned Holmes Boulevard site.

The commission agreed staff will no longer look at returning the material to the Riberia Street site in Lincolnville, where it was originally taken from.

The issue began when the city removed the dirt from an inactive landfill along the San Sebastian River to regrow the marsh and redevelop wetlands. The contaminated dirt was dumped in a borrow pit on North Holmes Boulevard

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection fined the city $33,698. The city agreed to clean the pit and put the dirt back on the Riberia site.

But that plan was put on hold when Lincolnville residents filed a petition against it. The plan will now be reviewed by a judge, a process that could take 150 days.

In the meantime, the city could change what it will do with the site, said John Regan, city chief operations officer.

Commissioner Errol Jones recently attended two Lincolnville neighborhood meetings, where a couple hundred people were against the city's plan.

"I will fight this battle tomorrow and the next day and the next day (to have the landfill material not be returned to Lincolnville)," Jones told the other commissioners Monday.

Returning the material was the most economical choice, as it would cost $800,000 opposed to paying $1 million to $2 million to dump the material in a landfill, Regan has said.

"Let's not keep talking about Lincolnville in terms of dollars," Jones said. "We're not talking dollars, we're talking about people."


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