By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
County Coordinator Wilbur Dean said Friday he is confident a resolution adopted by the Levy County Commission in February of 2022 will serve as a moratorium on the dumping of horse barn waste in Levy County, although many in the public have questioned whether the resolution has any teeth.
The resolution makes no mention of the word moratorium but does say that the county doesn’t allow dumping, storage, disposal, treatment, or processing of barn waste for commercial or industrial use in any zoning district in the county and therefore dumping is prohibited.
“I see no reason for any individual or entity to desire to violate the moratorium Levy County has put in place. It is entirely enforceable and will be if necessary,” Dean said.
The 2022 resolution directed county staff to continue working on a zoning uses ordinance that would address the disposal or composting of manure and barn waste in Levy County.
The Levy County Land Development Code makes no mention of regulating commercial or industrial dumping, storage, disposal, treatment, or processing of barn waste and manure. The resolution suggests the lack of regulations means those uses are prohibited in any zoning district of the county.
Dean’s comment was in response to a question from Spotlight on whether the county would take legal action to stop horse waste dumping on two properties in the Williston and Morriston areas owned by billionaire Reid Nagle. Nagle’s staff has submitted applications to the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation seeking to register those properties for potential use in composting. His company, All In Removal, hauls used horse bedding as well as clean pine shavings used for bedding.
The resolution adopted by the county commission in February of 2022 said neighboring counties had adopted prohibitions and stringent restrictions on the storage and disposal of barn waste in those counties.
“Levy County is concerned that such actions by neighboring counties may result in the horse industry and its service providers looking to store, dispose, or process regional barn waste on property in Levy County,” the resolution said.
“It is also recognized that this prohibition of such commercial or industrial uses does not operate to limit the activity of generating and re-using manure on a bona fide farm operation on land classified as agricultural land, where such activity is done in the course of normal farming operations as defined and regulated under state law” the resolution added.
While most residents in Levy County appear to be strongly opposed to any horse waste being dumped in Levy County from neighboring counties, or dumped here at all, the resolution goes in a different direction.
Written by County Attorney Nicolle Shalley, the resolution directs staff to come back with recommendations to allow “environmentally and economically viable ways to reuse and process barn waste” for processing into beneficial products.
The resolution said the county commission is seeking input from industry representatives, governmental agencies, academics, and other persons with knowledge or information “relevant to the beneficial re-use of barn waste/manure and how such uses may be regulated to minimize devaluation and the creation of a public nuisance.”
Residents that have contacted Spotlight don’t want horse waste dumped next to their homes and they don’t see a realistic way to dump horse waste in residential areas without destroying entire neighborhoods and everything they hold sacred in rural Levy County. They have suspicions about the county’s motives in trying to make commercial or industrial manure composting a legal land use in the county’s unincorporated areas.
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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt May 26, 2023; Posted Mary 26, 2023
