‘Don’t poop on Putnam:’ Plan to dump biosolids on property in Putnam County faces opposition

PUTNAM COUNTY, Fla. — There’s a 47-acre parcel in Putnam County that has become a battleground between the man who owns it and the people who live nearby.

Future use of the land has spurred the creation of a group called, “Don’t Poop on Putnam.” That name might be a clue, but they are fighting the landowner’s move to use the parcel as a biosolid application site.

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The semi-rural acres are home to a lake, an aquifer recharge zone and back up to the backyards of people like Elizabeth and Donald Fowler.

“This is just really gonna harm our little community,” Elizabeth Fowler said.

“And possibly the rest of Putnam County,” Donald Fowler said.

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The man who owns the land is Lawrence Downs from Volusia County. He wants to apply minimally-treated biosolids to the land that come from septic tank, porta potty and grease trap waste.

Downs refused an interview with us, but concerned locals sent us cell phone video of him talking to neighbors outside a permitting meeting.

He says, “I have thirty customers that pump with us from all over central Florida. I don’t go get anything. We are a treatment plant.”

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He goes on to say, “I’m not trying to pollute anything.”

He’s been battling to get his permit through the county process for more than a year, meeting opposition from locals and environmental groups alike. They are worried about what the sewage sludge will do to property values, the water supply and their quality of life.

Janet Sornbercher with the Environmental Coalition of Putnam County calls it, “an attack on rural America. We are not a dumping ground for their crap,” she said.

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Class B biosolids are the least-treated waste allowed for use by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and are allowed to have detectable pathogens like bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms.

Because of that, they are not allowed on home lawns or gardens, or on feed crops within 30 days of harvest.

The raw materials would come from Downs’ Volusia County company, American Bioclean.

A video on the company’s website shows the process. The human waste and grease goes into a tank and “we treat the liquid with lime and it neutralizes it,” Downs says in the cell phone video.

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Lime is all that goes into it, sitting for two or 22 hours, depending on what’s in the waste. Then Downs told the neighbors, it would get trucked to Putnam County and put on the land.

People like the Fowlers worry about what that means for their drinking water.

“Our well heads are right there,” Elizabeth Fowler said.

“We’ll have to leave, we’ll have to move,” Donald Fowler said.

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While the nutrients in the sludge would provide fertilizer, opponents to the plan say there could also be heavy metals, chemicals or carcinogens in it -- all things that have no place next to the homes and people nearby, they say.

Sornbercher told Action News Jax the location is “past the bar, before the daycare, on the way to the church -- which is next to the high school. It’s in the middle of a residential area.”

“Just because it’s zoned agricultural doesn’t mean it’s far away from people,” Sornbercher said.

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In an email from Downs’ attorney he issued this statement:

“The application going before the Putnam County Zoning Board of Adjustment is for a special use permit for the application of biosolids. Special uses have specific criteria and conditions that are established by a local government and an applicant must meet these criteria and conditions to be entitled to the permit. The use is also regulated by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which recently enacted revised and updated biosolids standards in 2021. Here, the applicant and the project team carefully analyzed the applicable Putnam County use criteria and the FDEP revised standards to develop a comprehensive plan that not only meets the applicable County and FDEP criteria and standards, but also exceeds them in many ways (e.g. setbacks and stormwater management). After reviewing the applicant’s submittal, Putnam County’s technical staff prepared a staff report on the application that recommends approval of the special use permit with reasonable conditions that are consistent with the applicant’s goal of operating this use in a manner that is safe and protective of human health and the environment.”

The permit goes went before the Zoning Board of Adjustment on Wednesday and was unanimously denied.

Downs has 30 days to file an appeal and if that happens, the case will go to circuit court.

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