Editorial: No dumping resolution best for Lincolnville

Editorial: No dumping resolution best for Lincolnville
Posted: Sunday, February 17, 2008 ; Updated: 7:51 AM on Sunday, February 17, 2008

The city of St. Augustine has found the best way, we believe, to end the battle with the Lincolnville community over contents of an old Riberia Street landfill.

The new proposal is in the working stages prior to final approval from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

It will allow the city to give a landfill in Nassau County cover soil, which will be the result of sifting out the solid waste and sending it to a landfill yet to be chosen, instead of returning it to Riberia Street from Holmes Boulevard.

The landfill's contents are in a Holmes Boulevard borrow pit where they were taken by the city more than two years ago.

DEP cited the city for illegal dumping and the city had to detour from its original plan.

The city then got permission from DEP to remove the material from Holmes, screen it so it would be free of solid waste, and then return the resulting soil to Riberia Street.

But Lincolnville residents screamed foul and the chorus got larger and louder. Charges of environmental racism were made against the city because Lincolnville is an historically black community.

John Regan, the city's chief operations officer and project manager, heard the outcry at City Commission meetings and community meetings.

After many acrimonious comments about the city's proposed action, a petition against the city plan filed by residents to the DEP and a subsequent DEP investigation, Regan led the city back to the drawing board.

In some respects, Regan is a digger, a sifter himself. He and city staff went over the options the city initially studied before planning to take the soil sifted from the solid waste from Holmes back to Riberia.

Although the DEP signed off on the removal from Holmes back to Riberia, DEP officials have agreed to let the city come up with an alternative plan.

Too many caustic meetings and comments made the original plan unworkable although it seemed to us a sound solution originally.

The new plan will still cost about $800,000 but it appears to be a much better resolution.

The material at Holmes will be removed from Holmes, and screened by heavy machinery so that any solid waste is sifted out. The soil left is what will go to the Nassau County landfill as top cover.

The city then will pay to dump the solid waste in another landfill, not yet selected.

As of Friday afternoon, Regan was confident an agreement will be reached with Nassau County.

Lincolnville residents showed that if you speak out and do your homework, you will be heard at all levels of government.

Regan showed he was willing to listen to the community and find a better resolution.

This is a lesson in government ingenuity.

(c) St. Augustine Record 2008