INDIANTOWN, Fla. — The village of Indiantown is considering bringing a regional septage and biosolids processing facility to the Booker Park neighborhood.
Neighbors said a wastewater treatment plant that just closed filled the area with the smell of feces, and news of the project has them worried that it may bring bigger smells.
The site would be in 6 acres of wooded property along Southwest 168 Ave. and Magnolia Street.
"It's awful, it's an awful smell," said Patricia Jackson, who lives across the street from the proposed project. "I don't like them coming to the neighborhood, but there's no where else to put it."
She said she's spoken up at village meetings worried about the impacts the trucks will have on her road.
"And then it will take a lifetime to fix it, this is the best road since they redid it," said Jackson.
Her neighbor Willie Joe Williams Jr. said his concerns go beyond the smell.
"I have concerns about the traffic for one, and then would they hire the folks that live here, or they'll have somebody else flown in?" said Williams.
WPTV reporter Joel Lopez took those concerns to Stanley Janicki, the chief commercial officer with Sedron Technologies, who is behind the project.
"We're not going to import tech workers, we're going to recruit from that local talent pool and train them to whatever level we need for the next 20 to 30 years," said Janicki.
He said the project will bring up to 30 local high paying jobs and trucks will be using easements near the railroad to prevent traffic in the neighborhood.
Janicki said construction will only operate during normal business hours.
As far as noise, he said at the property line, the facility is expected to produce max of 60 decibels, which he said is about as loud as a conversation.
"We are extremely invested in ensuring that our community impact is positive," said Janicki. "We have to be here for 20 years, so our goal is to have a positive impact."
Janicki said this facility would be the first of it's kind in Florida, and the second in the nation and that Indiantown is appealing, because of the location and the space.
"The idea is if we build a plant like this at basically the top end of South Florida, which is where Indiantown is, we'll be able to attract biosolids from Miami all the way up to Port St. Lucie," said Janicki.
He said they can then produce a concentrated nitrogen fertilizer and a concentrated dry product that can be used as a precision fertilizer or used as cement kiln fuel to displace the use of coal, which is a more green alternative.
Janicki said that Indiantown is building a new wastewater plant which will also send it's biosolids to Sedron's facility.
"For the people living across the street are they going to have to deal with any kind of odor?" asked Lopez.
"They are not going to have to deal with odor," said Janicki.
He said in their other location, every hauler that goes to the site is individually permitted and has to go through a checklist to maintain cleanliness.
Next, liquid waste is never exposed to the air and transferred the truck through a sealed vacuumed pipe so odor never escapes. Biosolids are covered and backed into a room with negative pressure that sucks air, again so no odor escapes according to Janicki.
On the site, Janicki said there are more mitigation efforts on site to both capture and destroy the odor.
"If they think they're seeing odor, or they've smelled an odor they can call the company and we will deal with it," said Janicki.
He said there will be a live website and QR code where people can submit odor complaints.
Janicki said the village will get tax revenue and lease revenue from the vacant property.
As of right now, Janicki said several permits are in place, but the project isn't finalized.
That village commission is expected to vote on leasing the property to Sedron next Thursday.
We have reached out to village commissioners for comment, but they did not respond.
