CRESCENT CITY, FLA. — On an early foggy morning, this small town in rural Putnam County could pass for a historic Northeastern seaport, though the Atlantic Ocean is 40 minutes away. Crescent City was named for the lake that curves around it, the eighth-largest in Florida.
Janet and Steven Simoneaux retired here in 2019 to get away from increasing congestion and rising prices in southeast Florida’s Broward County. Janet said she misses the food but is happy with the laid-back lifestyle she has living in Crescent City.
They settled on Lake Crescent, where residents enjoy bass fishing, quiet breezes and a vast expanse of water.
“15,000 acres large,” said Steven Simoneaux. The lake is closer to 16,000 acres.
But before long, the Simoneauxes got a disturbing surprise, one not likely to have happened in their former urban home. In 2021, Volusia County resident Laurence Downes applied to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) under the business name Jennigirl for a permit to spread biosolids in Putnam County. Downes also owns American Bioclean, a waste management company that cleans out septic tanks in east Central Florida.
The application was to apply treated sewage sludge known as Class B biosolids from American Bioclean on a 500-acre farm property with woods and bahia grass pastures. It detailed a 100-foot setback between the biosolids and the farm, and a 150-foot setback between the biosolids and the property line in respect for neighbors.
Part of the site, 298 Old Hwy 17, is near a creek. Soil around the stream is sandy, as Steven Simoneaux pointed out, and the creek also flows into Crescent Lake.
The couple and their neighbors were concerned about potential impacts to their health and the environment. But they were also peeved that the waste did not even come from Putnam County.
Janet Simoneaux began her career with the FDEP in the ‘80s after graduating from the University of Florida and retired as director of environmental health and safety for one of Florida’s largest private companies.
So she was familiar with biosolids.
Once considered a beneficial way to reuse wastewater, they are now considered hazardous due to chemicals such as PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.” The Environmental Protection Agency suggested in a recent study that human health risks associated with PFAS were higher in some areas where biosolids were applied to farm fields.
“The land application area had what we called surface water concerns,” Janet said. “Which would be run off into a surface water tributary going into Lake Crescent.”
Drone imagery of the property where Jennigirl was planning to apply biosolids, including nearby Lake Como. (Courtesy of Steven Simoneaux)
She said she knew biosolids can be suitable for land application in farming. But she had greater concerns about the potential for chemicals in biosolids to enter the water supply – and people’s bodies.
“We began to push back on this, because the sludge was coming from Volusia County,” Janet said. “And, it was kind of like, why is Volusia County sending their biosolids to Putnam County?”
Rural residents across Florida are asking the same kinds of questions. Denser urban areas such as Volusia County, or the Simoneauxes’ former home in southeast Florida, are covered with developments and residential areas and don’t have space for their own biosolids waste. A WUFT analysis of DEP permit data shows that rural counties receive more Class B biosolids than they generate.
Janet Simoneaux and other residents in her community created a nonprofit called Preserve Putnam to fight the biosolids permit. They hired a lawyer, hydrologist and toxicologist to prepare their case. Simultaneously, another nonprofit called Don’t Poop on Putnam was also created to protest the permit.
In 2022, the permit was withdrawn.
But many rural areas don’t have a Janet Simoneaux, or money to pay environmental lawyers and other professionals. Rural counties also may have less access to lawmakers and less influence on statewide policy and law.
Two hours south of the Simoneauxes on a backroad in Bartow in Polk County, residents reported foul odors from a nearby site spreading biosolids from wastewater facilities in cities including Plant City in Hillsborough County; Clearwater in Pinellas County; and Miami. FDEP inspectors visited the site in 2020, found piles of sewage sludge within 300 feet of homes and fined the company more than $20,000. FDEP records show the site stopped applying biosolids in 2020. Today, cows graze on its shady acres.
But a new neighbor is coming in. The land where biosolids were applied is part of plans for a large housing community. Developer David Waronker plans to transform the land into a 2,000-home master-planned community. The Bartow City Commisson unanimously voted to send Waronker’s land use changes to the Florida Commerce Department for review in 2025, though nearby neighbors say the former biosolids operation should raise concerns.
Waronker said he’s aware of the site’s past.
“I would have never bought the property or allowed it to be developed if it were not a safe site to develop,” Waronker said. He commissioned environmental studies to test for contamination and found none in either the groundwater or the soils.
“Rural residents aren’t included”
Statewide, residents want certain industries out of sight, out of mind. Biosolids, prisons, landfills and the like tend to go in rural areas, which can cause newcomers angst as those counties urbanize. But pollution concerns, too, have pushed biosolids out of some sensitive parts of Florida. At least, sensitive parts with political pull.
In 2007, the state banned land application of biosolids within the Northern Everglades, Lake Okeechobee, Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie River watersheds. They flow through South Florida counties such as Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade, which are the biggest generators of Class B biosolids.
Elio Fernadez is a PhD candidate in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University. He studies water quality and sustainability, specializing in environmental planning.
He said, based on his studies, a lack of consideration for rural communities in planning processes makes them invisible, aside from agriculture.
“It’s mostly a planning issue that rural residents aren’t included in the planning process,” Fernandez said. “[There is a] lack of participation, lack of outreach, lack of representation.”
Fernandez said that urban areas and industrial agriculture have more power in planning decisions.
Class B biosolids are commonly applied to farmland as fertilizer. In 2021, 43% of biosolids generated in the United States were land-applied, according to an EPA report.
Jared Hayes, a senior policy analyst for the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, said farmers should be made aware of the PFAS-related risks associated with biosolids when accepting them.
“I’m not saying we can’t spread biosolids on our land,” Hayes said. “We should make sure that biosolids, or those biosolids, are being spread, are safe and free from contamination.”
But biosolids can be valuable, and waste still has to be dealt with. Davie Kadyampakeni is an associate professor and researcher at the University of Florida who specializes in soil management.
He has studied biosolids to evaluate them as an amendment to improve soil quality in Florida. Amendments are important for adding nutrients since Florida's soils are so sandy, he said.
According to Kadyampakeni, the farmers he has worked with who agreed to apply biosolids to their land have seen soil quality improvements. He said the nutrients from biosolids can last twice as long as the nutrients in standard fertilizers.
Yet, Kadyampakeni said, there’s still more research to be done on biosolids. To determine the rate at which biosolids should be applied to farms and how they can be decontaminated for PFAS.
Kadyampakeni said he believes PFAS concerns can be addressed with investment and technologies. Researchers just need time.
“If we do some research and maybe assess different ways that we can deploy to take out the PFAS from biosolids,” Kadyampakeni said. “That will be something that, I think, will help humanity in the long, long term.”
Some waste professionals say treating biosolids longer and hotter can ease contamination worries. Tom Otermat has been in the wastewater industry for over 30 years and serves as a consultant in biosolids application.
He compared the most treated type of biosolids, Class AA, to a fine mulch, marketed and sold like any other commercial fertilizer.
Otermat said biosolids are valuable to farming because they can provide nutrients to the soil. “We can’t just throw our nutrients away,” Otermat said.
PFAS concerns are understandable, he said, and class AA treatment doesn’t eliminate them. But he pointed out that the “Forever Chemicals” can already be found in everything inside your house, from household detergents to kitchen supplies.
Otermat said when biosolids are properly treated and applied under proper procedures, there should be no health issues.
“The reality is we’re a growing state,” he said. “We’re losing a lot of our land application sites.”
Otermat said it’s crucial to find ways to use biosolids for their nutrients via methods like composting, but nobody wants to live near a facility.
“Everybody has to understand that everybody poops,” he said. “Everybody wants to eat. There are going to be some inconveniences you may live with in life.”