The Alachua County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) unanimously passed a motion on Tuesday to start regularly monitoring air quality conditions around Florence Landfill in Gainesville.  

The air monitoring plan comes in response to a motion unanimously passed in January, which directed county staff to review and present the BOCC with Florence’s state-required closure plan after residents raised concerns over potential air emissions coming from the landfill. 

Of the six air monitoring options presented by the Alachua County Environmental Protection Department (EPD) on Tuesday, the BOCC chose option E which will cost an estimated $95,099 to rent, install and maintain four air sampling units.  

The units will test for contaminants such as hydrogen sulfide gas, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide every 15 to 30 minutes every day for six months to document data in compliance with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) to illustrate Florence’s harm to the area. 

The estimated cost does not include access fees such as electricity and internet needed to run the machines. If the funding is available, the units could be up and running in a couple of weeks. 

Residents posing concerns over potential emissions in the air from the landfill, damage to the roads by its dump trucks and the ongoing stench are what drove the BOCC to pass the January motion, and the same concerns also drove the second motion on Tuesday. 

“It is expensive, but hopefully we could get Florence Landfill to pay for it after,” a resident said. “It does seem worth it in the end, because the economic costs of community members getting cancer is a lot more expensive than what that would be.” 

According to EPD’s Steven Hofstetter and Chris Gilbert’s Florence Landfill closure presentation, the landfill started as an unpermitted local landfill that ran as the Feagle Fill Dirt operation from 1960 through 1984. The site was the Renfroe Landfill until 1991 before becoming the Florence Construction and Demolition Landfill in 1994.  

Although county staff reported that the landfill is not currently violating its FDEP permit, Florence has a history of permit compliance failures. 

Multiple commissioners said concerns raised about Florence Landfill today were generational and nothing new. Commissioner Charles Chestnut recalled hearing about similar dealings when his father was a commissioner.  

Although Florence’s ownership initially responded to promptings to compromise on addressing the site’s concerns, Chestnut expressed his frustrations over their recent inaction. 

He said the data collection will also serve as an effort to collect enough evidence to send to the state to entreat them to intervene on the county’s behalf in the landfill’s closure. 

“I think we need this to be able to fight and to give to the legislature to show that there is an issue and a reason,” Chestnut said. “I don’t think I have any more sympathy left for businesses who don’t want to participate and help with the problem. So he’s not a problem solver. It’s the American way of life; greed.” 

The EDP’s closure plan presentation outlined the FDEP’s requirements for a landfill closure design plan. The design must include engineering plans, phasing of the closure, final side slopes and drawings showing existing and final topography cover for the land. 

Within 180 days of closure, a landfill site must be covered by a 24-inch-thick soil layer with the upper six inches being capable of supporting vegetation for managing erosion that could impact stormwater basins. 

The closure plan must also include how stormwater will be controlled on the site and limiting who has access to the property. A gas management system will also need to be accounted for if applicable. 

The current closure plan for Florence is from May 2019 and created by Engineering Design Associates (EDA). It would cost an estimated $478,193.42 to target 28 out of the landfill’s 40 acres and expand the three stormwater retention basins on site. 

Long-term care of the land following the closure would include five years of monitoring the groundwater for any hazardous materials leaving the site and cost an estimated $107,494.37. 

The state would issue a certificate of closure once the closure project engineer notified the FDEP that the closure had been completed according to its plan. The landfill owner would then be able to publicly declare in deed records in the office of the county clerk that the landfill is closed. 

Within 30 days of the certificate of closure and public declaration, the FDEP will provide a letter containing an official date of closure.  

Although the plan did not include a specific timeline for closing Florence, Commissioner Ken Cornell noted that after all the requirements are met and the five years of monitoring are completed, the county is looking at a nearly decade-long process for closing Florence. 

Sarah Younger of the Sierra Club Suwannee-St. Johns Group asked the BOCC to consider where construction debris—such as from the demolition of Maguire Village as recently proposed by UF’s board—would end up over the next several years during Florence’s shutdown.  

“It’s a big concern to me that this facility is not already in its final steps to close because it has the potential of being doubled in height, potentially in the next several years, if it’s allowed to operate that way,” she said. 

Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler also questioned the amount of dirt it would take to create the site cover proposed in the plan and where it would come from. Gilbert said the plan didn’t account for how much dirt would be required, but that it would be pulled from the perimeter of the site. 

After reviewing the six air quality monitoring plans, Commissioner Anna Prizzia filed a motion to approve plan C for $77,269, which she said would monitor the contaminants they knew to be of concern without paying extra for what doesn’t exist.  

Commissioner Mary Alford said she was putting her environmental engineering degree to use in considering the landfill’s closure, and seconded Prizzia’s motion. But after considering the farmlands surrounding the landfill that could also emit contaminants like hydrogen sulfide through fertilizer, she recommended the board pivot to plan E that would provide a fourth unit capable of collecting a baseline of background data to pinpoint the source more accurately. 

“[Florence] could make the argument that there was something happening on a farm where they were spreading manure and that brought out hydrogen sulfide, [and] that could be a real thing,” Alford said. 

Alford also addressed the “big elephant in the room,” which is what happens if the air tests come back contaminated. Would Florence Landfill be responsible for paying for any of the costs if it did? Gilbert said he would look into the concern.  

No matter what the data comes back showing, Cornell said it doesn’t change the fact that the Florence Landfill owner is still guilty of operating in non-conformity over the years. 

The BOCC also confirmed that it had addressed two other action items from January’s motion in contacting the landfill’s owners to ask that drywall be diverted to a Palatka site and sending a chair letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Alachua County Legislative Delegation and other state departments about the community’s concerns. 

Florence’s owners responded that they would continue operating under the legislative extension timeline with the drywall, and the chair letter sent on March 5 had received no response.