ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Ask neighbors in west St. Augustine and they’ll tell you something not so pleasant is in the air.
“It is a distinctly human feces smell when you walk outside,” St. Augustine neighbor Heather described to Action News Jax on Monday.
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The smell is suspected to be coming from Indianhead Biomass, a St. Augustine company that turns human waste, as well as other materials, into compost for farm use. Now, over 200 St. Augustine neighbors have signed a petition for the company to cease its biomass operations, due to widespread reports of an awful smell in nearby neighborhoods.
The complaints come after an October Florida Department of Environmental Protection consent order found Indianhead had failed to properly process its waste in order to prevent the spread of disease. The order also found it was holding that waste outside its permitted boundaries.
“A lot of people in the community don’t really have faith that they are going to adhere to the permit rules even if they are brought up,” Heather told Action News Jax.
However, Joe Williams, manager at Indianhead Biomass, told Action News Jax those violations have since been corrected, with $27,000 in fines also paid.
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“The list on the consent order has been addressed, they’ve been out multiple times, and we make compost here,” Williams said Monday.
Neighbors like Heather now are expressing their concerns not just about the smell possibly affecting their home values, but also threatening the local environment as well.
Meanwhile, Williams reassured Monday the company’s operations are actually safer than the alternative choice.
“They’re concerned that compost is putting more nitrates in the runoff, and they’re concerned about their groundwater,” Williams acknowledged. “The more concerning thing with groundwater is chemical fertilizers.”
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Action News Jax reached out to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on if there are any plans for the business to be shut down, or if it’s now in compliance with FDEP regulations as Williams indicated. They said they’re currently working to get Action News Jax a response, though we still haven’t yet.
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