PUTNAM COUNTY, Fla. — Waste dumped in a sewer line by county workers has some Palatka residents worried.
John Spell began following an old rusted truck months ago. He captured video that shows the driver dropping a hose into the city’s sewer line and dumping thousands of gallons of pungent, dark liquid down the drain.
"You can look at the corrosion on the truck and know some kind of toxic waste has been hauled in it," Spell said.
He learned that the dark, smelly liquid is leachate. It started at the Putnam County landfill as rainwater that filtered through millions of pounds of trash.
"If it's leaving the landfill, you can believe there's something wrong with it," Spell said.
Action News spotted the truck in April and watched as more than 4,000 gallons of the smelly toxic liquid was poured down a drain, just a few hundred feet from a day care.
"We're not causing any issues to the community," said Brian McCann, superintendent of the Palatka Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The city-owned plant has been treating contaminated landfill runoff for 20 years because the county-owned landfill can’t do it. Leachate is concentrated contamination that must first be diluted before being treated.
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"The line that we pump in now is a gravity line so when leachate hits that line it travels through slowly to our main station on River Street and that pumps it to us," McCann said. "That pipe has the most dilution factor."
"I think it's unfair for them to be dumping it like that," Spell said.
McCann said mixing leachate with sewage is the only way that county officials know to keep the system working. Action News was told that iron in the water, and not the chemicals in leachate, cause the rust on the truck.
Residents have filed multiple complaints about the dumping. They say they are worried about the effect that leachate could have on the environment and their health.
"If that was happening, it would cause some issues, but we are 100 percent certain that this is staying in our system," McCann said.
Action News learned that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has conducted repeated tests in the past year in response to those concerns, and maintains that the leachate is not hazardous.
“Testing of the leachate water indicated it was somewhat enriched with iron but otherwise met water quality standards. This practice is authorized, allowable by the City of Palatka’s wastewater permit and poses no risk to the community,” said Russell Simpson, an ombudsman for the northeast district of the Department of Environmental Protection.
“The dumping of leachate from the Putnam County landfill into the city of Palatka waste treatment plant is consistent with DEP policy and procedures,” said Mary Garcia, administrator and health officer for the Florida Department of Health of Putnam County.
"We're doing everything legal. We're doing everything safe," McCann said.
McCann told Action News that unlike Palatka’s 130-year-old water system, the sewage line is self-contained, is made of concrete and sealed. Despite those assurances, Spell said he still worries about the toxic water flowing through the pipes.
Spell said that until the dumping stops, he'll continue to push for a change in policy.
"After I'm dead and gone, and everyone else pretty well gone that's here today, then everybody else (has) got to deal with what's behind it," Spell said.
WJAX
