Sludge Watch ==> Fort Meade - residents worried new plant will be as bad as N-Viro was

[Maureen Reilly]

Published Monday, January 22, 2007

Wastewater Treatment Plant OK'd
Some Fort Meade residents are concerned about odors, as a prior plant had 
emitted.

By Suzie Schottelkotte
The Ledger


FORT MEADE - The state has issued a permit to Appalachian Material Services 
to operate a wastewater treatment system near Fort Meade, but managers said 
they don't plan to crank up operations any time soon.

"We have all the equipment in place and we're ready to go," said Jon Wimpy, 
the plant's owner. "We just don't have the demand yet. Our other operations 
have been able the handle the load."

Wimpy said he's negotiating contracts now that will require the additional 
capacity, but he wasn't sure how soon that may happen.

"It may be a couple years before this plant gets up and running," he said.

Wimpy's plans to reopen the old N-Viro plant on the city's northern boundary 
were met with skepticism and outrage in the nearby Fort Meade community, 
where residents had fought to have the N-Viro operations shut down.

The company closed its wastewater treatment operations in 2001 after 
neighbors and the city filed complaints about odor problems with the state 
Department of Environmental Protection.

Wimpy purchased the 60-acre N-Viro site last year and filed for a permit 
with the DEP.

Residents again sent letters to the state DEP when Appalachian Material 
Services sought a permit to reopen the site. The City Commission held an 
emergency meeting on a Saturday last April to draft a letter opposing the 
proposal.

Wimpy responded that his system is enclosed, unlike the N-Viro process that 
left the treated wastewater to dry in open-air beds.

"Our system is completely different," he said. "We won't have the problems 
they had. Ours is a totally closed system."

Pamala Vazquez, spokeswoman for the DEP's Tampa office, said the department 
reviewed the public input before issuing the permit, and toured another 
facility operated by Appalachian near Fort Myers.

"We've never had complaints on that facility," she said.

After reviewing the file, the agency decided that Appalachian met the 
requirements for the permit on the Fort Meade site, she said.

Appalachian plans to bring in liquid wastewater from sewage treatment plants 
and process it into nitrogen-based fertilizer products used in ranching. The 
process takes a couple of days.

Mike Stedem, who owns the Stedem Ford dealership just south of the 
Appalachian site, said he's still not convinced that there won't be an odor.

"We'll see what happens," he said. "I find it hard to believe that there 
won't be any odor problems, but maybe we won't have any problems."

Suzie Schottelkotte can be reached at suzie.schottelkotte at theledger.com or 
863-533-9070.

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070122/NEWS/701220324/1004