Online Petition Takes Aim at Proposed Manure Pile Composting Facility Near Williston

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

An online petition has been posted seeking support to stop a manure pile composting facility from being built at the corner of County Road 316 and U.S. 27A near Williston Elementary and Williston Middle High schools.

Jill Westbrook and several others in an adjoining neighborhood have collected 82 signatures at this early stage of the petition drive but are asking others to join the opposition to this unwanted facility. To sign the online petition go to: https://www.change.org/p/manure-dump-health-hazard-for-williston-school-district

The proposed manure dump, as many are calling it, would be established 1 ½ miles from the two Williston schools. Westbrook and her group have concerns about possible negative health impacts the manure facility might have on the health of students.

In a letter to Spotlight, Westbrook said she found it interesting that Levy County Commission Chairman Matt Brooks did a “turnabout” concerning commercial manure composting in Levy County.

Brooks famously said at a county commission meeting that he didn’t want Levy County to become a manure dumping ground for horse manure from Marion County, but it appears now he is supporting a preliminary proposal to make commercial manure composting legal in rural areas of the county zoned agricultural/rural residential.

The county commission has scheduled a May 9 workshop from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Levy County Government Center behind the courthouse to discuss a proposed amendment to the Levy County Land Development Code that would make it legal to establish manure composting facilities in agriculture-rural residential areas.

“It is interesting that Matt Brooks has made a seemingly turnabout with his friend Michael Earnest, who I believe was appointed to the county planning commission to establish rules allowing composting,” she said in her letter to Spotlight. “It seems as if there is a fox in the hen house!”

In February of 2021, Brooks and then Commissioner Mike Joyner, who has since passed away, said Marion County had become the horse capital of the United States but they didn’t want Levy County to become a horse manure capital.

Brooks won commission support that day to work with then County Attorney Anne Bast Brown to develop legislation that would control and regulate the spread of horse manure dumping in Levy County. The county has yet to reveal the exact language of its proposed amendment to the Land Development Code but a preliminary draft submitted to county staff by Wright-Pierce, an engineering company working for Nagle, indicates the manure composting farms would be allowed on land zoned agriculture-rural residential after a special exception permit is secured by the landowner.

Brooks nominated Earnest for a position on the county planning commission last November and the full county commission approved him for the planning board. Both are residents of the Williston area and longtime friends. Earnest is COO and President of All-In-Removal, a company owned by billionaire Reid Nagle that transports clean wood shavings to Marion County equestrian facilities and hauls the horse manure bedding to places where it can be dumped for composting into soil. The wealthy businessman has founded Nature Coast Soils, LLC which owns the property that is the subject of the online petition, and both companies share the same address in Ocala.

“This is not Mr. Nagle’s first attempt to push through a manure compost facility in an agricultural/rural area where there are established residential neighborhoods,” the petition states. “To date he has been denied land use changes in other locations including Marion County and an earlier proposed location in Morriston. Considering the Marion County and Morriston rejects, it is even more important that Levy County denies this application when considering the location of this proposed site is on the same road as the Williston schools and is surrounded by numbers of rural property owners.”

“More importantly,” the petition added, “Mr. Nagle’s current proposal is to use CR316 as the entrance for more than 20 commercial vehicles to access the manure facility 6 days a week. These heavyweight commercial trucks will have to traverse the same road as school buses that deliver our school children.”

The petition said Nagle will need approvals at the state level for various environmental issues including water run-off, storm water protection, insects, bird and wildlife effects, poisonous gas emissions, noxious odor control, and community eye-sore. The petition added that a proposal is being finalized.

“Now is the time for our community to get involved and voice our concerns to protect our children and the community,” the petition states.

Manure composting is not farming under state law. It is considered a form of manufacturing. Raw manure is dumped on farm fields to rot and stink under the hot Florida sun and eventually degrades into composting soil, which is why many consider it a manufacturing process that belongs in an industrial zone. It results in the manufacturing of composting soil.

Marion County allows commercial composting only in industrial zones. Advocates of manure pile composting say raw manure when allowed to decay on open fields under the hot Florida sun eventually forms composting soil, more commonly known as potting soil, which they construe as agriculture.

Neighbors of manure composting facilities say it destroys property values and is nothing more than an unhealthy eyesore in residential neighborhoods.