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Waste Plant Flyer Creates Buzz, Prompts Phone Calls

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By Carl  Orth | The Suncoast News

Published: February 2, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. - NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. - A flyer mailed to many Pasco residents lit fires of opposition to expansion of the county's waste-to-energy plant.

"Stop the Expansion of the West Pasco Solid Waste Incinerator at Shady Hills," the banner headline on the flyer proclaimed. It referred to the Pasco County Resource Recovery Facility on Hays Road.

At the facility in rural northwestern Pasco, three boilers burn most of the county's trash, generating electricity in the process. The county also has recycling operations on the plant site.

The mailer was sent by a recently formed nonprofit group, Clean Air Florida Now. Among its contributors is a Largo company that wants to build a composting and recycling facility in East Pasco.

The flyer listed the telephone number for the County Commission office in New Port Richey.

The commission office in West Pasco had received 138 calls by Wednesday morning, after the flyer began appearing in local mailboxes. Out of those 138 calls, only five callers wanted to see the county go forward with expansion of the incinerator, according to a phone log at the commission office.

The overwhelming majority of callers want the county to pursue more recycling, possibly even mandatory recycling.

The county is exploring its options because at times the amount of solid waste reaching the plant exceeds the plant's capacity to burn it. At such times the excess waste has to be sent to a facility in Osceloa County.

A county workshop on Jan. 16 was devoted to increased recycling and other potential options to expanding the resource recovery plant. County officials have expressed concerns over the estimated $150 million price for adding another boiler unit to the facility.

The mailing "sure rattled a lot of cages," said Commissioner Ann Hildebrand, who received a copy at home. "This put a lot of fear tactics in people."

Clean Air Florida Now only formed on Jan. 8, Hildebrand noted.

Incorporation papers filed with the Florida Secretary's of State's Office list a Tallahassee attorney, Richard E. Coates, as the registered agent of Clean Air Florida Now. He did not responded to telephone and e-mail messages requesting comment by press time Friday.

One of the three directors of Clean Air Florida Now, Gerald Kissel, of Clearwater, returned a phone call Wednesday evening.

"The actual cost of the mailer is something we'd rather not make public," Kissel said in an e-mail message Thursday.

In the Wednesday telephone interview Kissel confirmed that Angelo's Aggregate Materials helped pay for the mailer. An offshoot of the Largo-based Angelo's Aggregate Materials, Angelo's Recycled Materials, has proposed building the facility in East Pasco.

Permit applications for the proposed plant are pending before the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The East Pasco project has inspired some opposition.

The other two Clean Air Florida Now directors listed in state records are Rhea Kissel, of Clearwater, and John Wenrick, of Safety Harbor.

The Clean Air Florida Now Web site carries a letter from E. Dwight Adams, an emeritus professor of physics at University of Florida and member of the Alachua County Energy Conservation Strategies Commission.

Adams' letter opposes enlarging the Pasco resource recovery plant. As an alternative it suggests the sort of materials recovery facility and bioreactor landfill Angelo's Recycled Materials is proposing to build in the Dade City area.

The Web site also reprints a letter from Theresa Waldron, an executive member of the Nature Coast Group, Sierra Club.

The flyer says expansion of the Pasco resource recovery plant poses "threats to our health and environment" as well as "threats to our taxes and wallets." The mailer said in part, "recycling and new solid waste technologies are cheaper and safer."

Hildebrand had to reassure one caller she described as "petrified" after reading the Clean Air Florida Now flyer.

Hildebrand said the county is still studying all the options.

In an e-mail message sent Friday, Commissioner Pat Mulieri noted she has received "50-60" calls regarding the Clean Air Florida Now mailer.

The $285 million estimated cost to expand the county plant quoted in the Clean Air Florida Now flyer is well in excess of the $150 million estimate the county has received, Hildebrand noted.

The furor this week brought back memories for Hildebrand from the late 1980s, when the county first considered building the incinerator plant.

The debate then was intense, with many critics suggesting emissions from the plant's smoke stack and materials leaching from its ash landfill would contaminate the surrounding area's air and water.

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