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Workers Cap Off Closed Landfill

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 14, 2008

SEFFNER - After more than 20 years of serving as a collection point for the remains of stripped-down junk cars, a private landfill on Kingsway Road is closing.

The massive 13-acre hill that looms over a sprinkling of mobile homes along the road north of Interstate 4 won't grow higher. Comanco Environmental Corp. of Tampa has begun capping the site.

Neighbor Jerry Lewis said he is pleased to see truck traffic dwindle. Lewis, whose house fronts Pruett Road, said the hill "just kept getting bigger and bigger over the years, but now there's no more hauling in and out."

Hauling stopped more than a year ago, said Pamela Vazquez, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Brandon office. The DEP oversees landfill permits.

Vazquez said landfill operators "have to do continuous monitoring at every site, and this landfill has never had a violation for groundwater or air."

Representatives for the owners of the landfill, David Joseph Co., could not be reached for comment.

Although they are relieved the landfill is being capped, neighbors worry about what they see as the area's next dust storm: approval of an eighth borrow pit for the Thonotosassa-Seffner area.

After spending years in court battling neighbors opposed to the borrow pit, Lorton Industries got the go-ahead in 2007 to apply for a permit to dig the pit at Kingsway and Pruett.

"Right where the landfill stops, the county's gonna let them dig a 35-foot hole," Lewis said.

Lorton Industries has not applied for an operating permit, Hillsborough County engineering specialist James Miller said. But the county has granted Lorton a special-use permit to excavate 700,000 cubic yards of sand from the 40-acre site over five years. Sand from borrow pits is typically used for road construction and house foundations.

Phone calls to Lorton Industries and the company's attorney were not returned.

Longtime Seffner activist Cam Oberting, who waged a legal battle against the borrow pit with Lewis and the Seffner Community Alliance, said she is in no hurry to see the community burdened with another gigantic hole in the ground.

"What they're doing is abusing this area," said Oberting, president of the Taylor Road Civic Association. "We've suffered noise and dust for years."

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 657-4532 or yhammett@tampatrib.com.

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