Polk faces septic-industry crisis as BS Ranch says it'll stop accepting deliveries

Thousands of Polk County residents flush their toilets without a second thought. It travels to a septic tank, once called a "magic box" because it makes the waste disappear.

This way of thinking has led to a messy situation that could have severe environmental and public health consequences.

BS Ranch & Farm Inc., which accepts human waste as an organic waste recycling facility, has made the voluntary decision to phase out acceptance of septage and is in the process of doing so, according to its attorney, Patrice Boyes. No specific cutoff date has been given by BS Ranch. While the news may be welcomed by Lakeland residents who have repeatedly filed odor complaints against the facility with DEP, it's created a ripple of unease among the county's septic waste haulers.

"BS Ranch & Farm helped us stay in business and allowed us to continue serving our customers," said Tim Lister, chief financial officer of Averett Septic Tanks. "There is no other option to get rid of our septage."

Without BS Ranch, the nearest such facilities are in Plant City and in Avon Park. Both post challenges for haulers.

"We've known this was coming for a while and no one would listen," said Jeff Mann, owner of Mann Septic in Bartow. "No one would take heed, and we are now in a crisis situation virtually."

It's a problem not only facing Polk but statewide, according to Roxanne Groover, executive director of Florida Onsite Wastewater Association.

"What we call this is an onsite, sewage treatment, disposal waste stream challenge," she said. "It's much, much bigger than Polk County."

BS Ranch's legal limbo creates uncertainty

BS Ranch's voluntary decision to stop accepting septic waste comes after more than seven years of legal challenges from state and county officials.

"[W]e believe this decision should help resolve legal proceedings concerning BS Ranch's DEP permit," Boyes wrote to The Ledger in an email.

In March 2022, Florida Department of Environmental Protection refused to renew BS Ranch's state permit to continue operations as an organic waste recycling facility.

The two parties reached a deal in late July that would have allowed the facility to continue operating for another four years under a stringent set of guidelines for operational improvements. Polk County filed a legal challenge in August.

In response, the DEP took a closer look at its own actions and determined on Oct. 3 that the prior consent order that outlined the parties' agreement was "not an appropriate exercise of enforcement discretion, and it should not be approved as a final agency action," according to state documents posted on its public Oculus website. It withdrew the agreement.

This leaves the legal status of BS Ranch's permit to operate undecided.

No hearing date has yet been scheduled on the issue, according to FDEP spokesman Brian Humphries.

Where else can our waste go?

BS Ranch received its state permit to operate as an organic waste recycling facility about the same time state laws regarding the disposal of biosolid waste changed.

The East Lakeland site took delivery of 238,986 tons of biosolids from April 2016 to January 2022, according to a DEP report. It came from 38 wastewater plants all across Florida, including four plants in Hillsborough County, four in Pasco and three plants in Hardee.

"BS Ranch got an innovative permit and was trying to provide a service, but there were some challenges," Glover said. "There continue to be challenges."

The DEP created more stringent requirements for landspreading biosolids — the process of spreading out waste over a large area, usually agricultural land for hay, cattle or orange groves, to help reintroduce it to the environment. This included a half-mile setback from any property lines and limitations on the amount of septage that could be applied to the land.

"We along with almost every contractor in Polk County and across the state had to stop applying septage," Lister said.

After haulers pump out a homeowner's septic tank, they will likely have to travel to one of two locations: Integrated Water Services in Plant City or Avon Park's facility, which is intermittently closed.

"[Plant City] has a pretty good capacity, but they are not set up for the volume of trucks of waste that Polk County produces," Lister said.

Groover agreed the Plant City facility may struggle to keep up if every septic hauler is redirected there instead of BS Ranch. It could wind up creating a larger long-term problem.

"If you take all this excessive waste being treated at BS Ranch and move over to the Plant City location, they may start having odor issues due to having to hold it longer to work on processing it," she said. "We’ve made an even bigger challenge."

Polk County officials propose a plan

Polk County commissioners have engaged in several lengthy conversations on how to best address the area's waste management issues in recent months.

The commission has plans to build a county-operated waste-processing facility at the North County Landfill site, immediately next door to BS Ranch.

“What the county is doing is moving forward to facilitate a location where the haulers could bring their untreated effluent to a county facility to be treated as if it were a sewage treatment plant," said Commissioner George Lindsay, who chairs the commission.

Tamara Richardson, the county's utility director, said between engineering, permitting, equipment ordering and installation at the site, Polk could potentially have a facility open and operating by May 2025.

"The driver on the schedule is lead time on equipment. It could be 4 to 6 months, it could be 12 to 16 months," she told commissioners at an Oct. 13 agenda study.

Once the project's scope was ready, Richardson said the county plans to hold a stakeholder meeting, including all septage haulers, to ensure the new facility would meet their needs.

"I think the plant will be undersized," Groover said, citing her engineering background.

Haulers and solid-waste companies are concerned the facility the county plans to build may not meet Polk's future needs. Groover said the projected two-year timeline is less than realistic.

"Even if they can make the two-year deadline, with the amount of people moving in they will not be able to meet the need. They are not prepared for our expansion 5, 10, 15 years down the road," Groover said.

Polk County had about 160,000 septic tanks in use during a Florida Department of Health survey completed nearly a decade ago, Mann said. He estimates that number is well above 200,000 and closer to 300,000 septic tanks today.

"No one challenges me on that number," he said.

Mann said the number of septic tanks in use by single-family homes will continue to grow as developers build in increasingly rural areas.

What's it mean for haulers, septic tank owners?

Haulers have concerns about the financial impacts of BS Ranch's business decision or the eventual forced shutdown sought by the Polk County commission.

“It’s going to put some haulers and contractors out of business,” Mann said. “Those that will survive will have to charge an enormous rate. Most people will not be able to afford to get their tanks pumped.”

Haulers The Ledger spoke with had some concern this could cause contractors to engage in illegal dumping, or pumping out the septic waste of their trucks into manhole covers or ditches.

"Absolutely, without a doubt," Mann said. "This is people's lives, their income, how they feed their families, and they are going to do what makes it work one way or another."

Lister said he already had three contractors tell him if BS Ranch stops accepting septic waste they will dump it into a ditch themselves rather than make the drive to Plant City.

Groover said she didn't believe her association's haulers would risk losing their state license by committing illegal dumping.

"My contractor is not going to pick it up and illegally dump it. He will lose his license," she said. "The county needs to be concerned about the homeowner who goes to Home Depot, buys a sump pump and pumps it up in the backyard and down into a ditch."

Mann said homeowners complain and cry when he quotes an estimate of $350 to have their septic tank pumped out.

Read more: Waste at BS Ranch & Farm came from far and wide

If haulers have to drive to Plant City, early industry estimates are costs will at least double to $600 to $700 per pump out. Others estimate $1,000 a pump out.

“People of Polk County are going to hold us responsible for what we charge. We are not gouging," Mann said. "I won’t make a dime more, it’s all going to overhead. But it’s going to hurt a lot of people in Polk County.”

Mann explained he would have to pay for the cost of fuel, driver's wages for more time spent on the road and waiting in line at the Plant City facility to offload. The travel distance would likely reduce the number of customers he could service with each tank per day.

Fear of potential environmental, health impacts

Haulers and homeowners looking to avoid increasing costs could create an environmental and public health threat.

"We have a Department of Health with limited staffing and we have some pretty rural properties," Groover said. "We won’t know about it until it becomes a really big problem.

"It concerns me," she said.

Groover said if there's a 100 single-family home development, there's likely to be around 30 of those homes constructed in the same year that come due for septic maintenance.

"We see people all the time who should be repairing their septic system who go get a pump, get a sump pump and pump it out in the backyard," she said.

This is what's called a "sanitary nuisance." Groover said a homeowner may take this liberty, though its against state law, believing if it's just them at their house it's not a big problem. When multiplied by dozens or hundreds of homeowners, it quickly becomes a larger issue.

Lister said he thinks a possible solution would be for the state and county to allow BS Ranch to stay operational at least until the county's facility is running.

"There's no immediate resolution, which makes everyone nervous," Groover said. "Everyone needs to be engaged. It’s not going to go away, it doesn’t miraculously disappear."

Sara-Megan Walsh can be reached at swalsh@theledger.com or 863-802-7545. Follow on X @SaraWalshFl.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: 'Crisis situation': Polk may have no place to process septic waste