Posted on 11/30/2006 5:43:53 AM PST by Red Badger
LEE COUNTY: The Lee County Commission voted unanimously to proceed with plans to build a bio-diesel plant at the Gulfcoast Landfill. The decision upset residents in the nearby Stoneybrook Community, and even brought one woman to tears.
Homeowners have safety and health concerns about the plant.
Cathy Ciaffone lives right across the street from the landfill.
"We came to where we thought we'd be happy at. We have to move if our health doesn't get better," said Ciaffone.
She says her children and her neighbors suffer from fevers and sore throats. According to her the problems can all be blamed on the odors and gasses coming from the landfill.
"No one knows why the kids get sick. They don't go to the same school, we don't work at the same place, nothing in common except we live on that street," said Ciaffone.
Ciaffone and her neighbors are worried things will only get worse if the county builds a bio-diesel plant at the landfill.
"There could be a fire, an explosion. It's a refinery in our backyard," said Scott Algeo.
Neighbors are also worried about a recent proposal to expand the nearby landfill.
Commissioners say the two issues are completely separate and believe that the bio-diesel plant will save the county money on gas, clear up the sewer system and help with air quality.
"I don't see any downside. That's a benefit for the residents around the landfill and the entire community," said Lee County Commissioner Ray Judah.
The new plant would trap methane gas from the decaying garbage and then use it to create fuel for the busses in the Lee Tran System - cutting into the $1.9 million that the county currently spends on fuel.
The plan also involves collecting grease from local restaurants and turning it into gas too.
Commissioners say that will help keep the sewer system clog free and promote better air quality.
But despite all those benefits to the community, people living near the plant are skeptical.
"Can they prove to us we won't get any sicker or this will go away if they build this refinery?" said Ciaffone.
Tuesdays vote only clears the way for the county to complete applications to secure $2 million to pay for the bio-diesel plant – if they decide to build one.
Commissioners also agreed to meet face to face with neighbors on December 14th to listen to their concerns.
Judah obviously doesn't live down-wind. As to the residents ... if the landfill was there when they moved in, well ... duh!
"We came to where we thought we'd be happy at."
If this sentence is any indication, the woman isn't bright enough to realize that she was the one who chose to live across the street from a landfill.
I bought my home right across the street from a over worked and out of date sewage treatment plant. That's one reason the price was so cheap. I have no right to complain about the plant's smell. It will be replaced with a new state of the art facility, three miles away, in about three years. Then my property value will double or triple. It's already gone up 50% since I bought in 2002 even with the plant. The smell is only bad when the wind blows in my direction, maybe a week total per month.....
LOL...these whiners buy homes near a landfill and then complain that it stinks. I'm sure they'll be happy to accept a generous settlement for their palacial digs so they can afford homes next to hog farms and airports. Only the msm would take these people seriously.
I live in a city that built and sold subsidized housing around the city landfill, and then began to cry "environmental racism" because the residents experience odors on occasion. So, at great expense, the city is going to shut down their only landfill, which has repeatedly won state awards for efficiency and environmental safety, in order to create a park on the site. There will be no city landfill, just "transfer stations" scattered across the city, where garbage will be dropped off, stored for a time, and placed on trucks to be sent elsewhere. It's a hugely expensive boondoggle, of the city's own creation. They placed the subsidized housing there because the land was cheap, but ended up offended by their own logic.
So right now, the methane from the decaying trash is going out into the air and ... I dunno, making it smell. The residents prefer this to the methane being trapped and converted into biodiesel?
Here where I work, they built a transfer station across the street and down the road about 1/4 mile. On hot summer days, the smell is nauseating. Your city has just multiplied their problems tenfold.............
Yes, and note they refer to the new plant as a "refinery". They are more ignorant than a bucket of oil.............
"Your city has just multiplied their problems tenfold"
Multiplied their debt tenfold, too. It's one of the more amazingly stupid examples of PC in the local area, only surpassed by the fraud that is continually overlooked with city grants to the nonprofits who build low cost housing.
Anchorage built an airport on top of an old landfill (city dump) - they trap the gas and feed it into the natural gas system to heat the buildings. A water trapment system gathers and treats water leachate.
All in all pretty nify. IIRC, Phoenix is building a landfill designed from the get-go to produce gas and at some point get reopened for additional fill.
As for moving in across from a landfill, I believe the term is buyer beware....
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