POLK COUNTY, Fla. — Critics are raising a stink over what could become a very messy problem in Polk County.
The landfill where human waste from septic tanks was being hauled was shut down a couple of weeks ago, and now, the companies that empty those septic tanks are having to haul it out of the county at a cost of nearly twice what it had been.
Some think the situation could spell disaster for the environment.
“We are having to haul to other counties to handle our waste,” Tim Lister, who co-owns Averett Septic Tanks in Polk County, said.
It's not a glamorous profession, but Lister and others in it are sounding the alarm, worried that Polk County is about to create an environmental problem.
“It's going to create sanitary nuisances — is what we call it in the industry,” Lister said. “That's when people take care of their own septic tank and pump it into a ditch in their backyard.”
A couple of weeks ago, Polk County stopped doing business with BS Ranch and Farm, where Polk septic haulers had been dumping their loads for years.
In Polk County, it's estimated there are at least 300,000 septic tanks that create more than 30,000,000 gallons of wastewater each year.
For now, all of that now needs to go somewhere else.
“We are not here to talk to whether that was the proper call. We are here to talk to the issues that it has raised,” Roxanne Groover, the executive director of the Florida Onsite Wastewater Association, said.
This week, Groover and other stakeholders took their concerns to county leaders who said they stopped working with BS Ranch after neighbors complained about the odor and the Department of Environmental Protection refused to renew the facility’s permit.
Still, without an alternative site nearby, septic haulers now have to truck their loads to facilities outside Polk County.
Time, fuel and manpower add up, Lister says, doubling the average $350 bill to about $700.
And that, he and others fear, will actually create a potentially even greater environmental disaster.
He and others are already hearing comments from customers that raise concerns.
“They say they're going to buy a pump from Home Depot or Lowe's and put it in their tank or just letting it flow out on the ground,” Lister said.
Jeff Mann, who owns Mann Septic Service, told county leaders the same thing.
“I had a lady just squalling the other day, 'I can't afford it,'” he told commissioners. “I said, 'Ma'am, I surely understand.' She said, 'Well, my cap is off in the back right now. It's running out on the ground and I'm just gonna dig a bigger hole.' I said, 'I fully appreciate that. That's what's going to happen.'”
Polk County is in the process of constructing its own waste facility, but they estimate at the earliest it won't open until 2026.
Septic haulers have offered to build a private facility which they say could take just 4 to 6 months to complete, but say the county has told them they are not interested in that idea.
Some of the other ideas being discussed include helping private haulers offset their expenses to keep the price they charge customers down.
Others suggest looking for a location inside one of Polk County's existing landfills where the waste product could be stored temporarily until the new facility opens in a couple of years.
“I believe the citizens are going to take it into their own hands,” Lister said. “Or they're going to be forced to pay more money for us to haul it.”