Collier County planners express environmental issues regarding proposed Naples dump
Growth Management has sent three denial letters for a permit application.
Collier County residents continue to oppose plans for a dump in Naples, according to a recent article by Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics.
In April, Collier County Growth Management issued its third refusal letter for a Naples Disposal/Naples Excavating permit application. The trash disposal company is seeking authorization to convert a 2.5-acre Taylor Road property into an industrial waste storage and recycling facility near the Autumn Woods subdivision.
However, before disposing of trash on the land, the corporations must address a number of environmental and legal considerations.
An application document submitted for the proposed project last year identifies the site as ideal for a dump.
“This site is located within an industrial park with similar industrial uses located to the north, south, and west,” states a cover letter from Davidson Engineering. “While there is a residential development to the East, this is not proposing an expansion to the size of the preexisting Industrial district, and appropriate landscape buffering plus the existing canal shall separate the uses.”
However, the newest rejection remarks from county authorities state that the project as proposed will generate enough noise and pollution to reduce the value of properties in adjacent districts. This is primarily due to the possibility of dust from industrial machinery entering the air and settling around the town.
General Kinematics filed a site walkthrough on behalf of the project, which includes industrial conveyor belts and sorting machines that separate concrete, metals, and other commodities.
According to county comments submitted back to Davidson Engineering in April, the project designers failed to account for the quantity of residential growth that has occurred surrounding the site in recent years.
While the plans involve an industrial-zoned site, planners stated that the dump, which is planned to run daily from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., will result in hundreds of truck trips.
In addition, the expected noise from machinery required to crush, sift, and recycle rubbish, as well as vehicle traffic, will most likely violate Naples’ noise restrictions.
The property where the corporations want to dump trash is also located in Naples’ Coastal Ridge wellfield, one of only eight areas in the county where freshwater is extracted from the Floridan Aquifer.
Applications state that the dump will not accept highly hazardous products, yet the conditional use requested for the dump allows fertilizers, paints, asphalt, and cleaning materials to be disposed of there.
The plans involve the processing of building and demolition detritus, which raises environmental issues. The destruction of concrete, wood, and drywall can produce poisonous and airborne dust.
According to Kinetic’s walkthrough, dust byproducts can be addressed by deploying misting systems and spray hoses to keep particles out of the air, but this raises issues about runoff into groundwater, potentially damaging the aquifer.
The project, as currently proposed, will require an additional permit from the South Florida Water Management District to authorize discharges into the Taylor Canal and Gordon River extension.
The project’s planners have been negotiating with county staff since the pre-application process began last July.
However, county authorities continue to raise a variety of issues. The most recent application denial letter includes issues from Comprehensive Planning, Landscape, Zoning, and County Attorney reviewers. The notice further specifies that the application must be resubmitted in its entirety.
The proposal also cannot be considered by the Collier County Commission unless corporations meet with neighborhood associations, including the Autumn Woods Master Association, as well as community organizations in Stonegate and Mill Run.
The Autumn Woods region alone is home to 548 households, with the majority in 350 single-family houses in a subdivision across the street from the site.
This article originally appeared on Florida Politics