Alachua County Commission discusses future landfill options, passes resolution recommending once-a-week year-round watering restrictions

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the June 9 Alachua County Commission meeting, the board approved extending sewer lines to Archer and Newberry; discussed options for trash disposal, including two potential sites for a landfill in the county; passed a resolution recommending once-a-week year-round watering restrictions; and approved land use and zoning changes for the UF Golf property.

Extension of sewer lines to Archer and Newberry

The first agenda item was a resolution to allow for the extension of sanitary sewer lines outside the urban cluster for the Archer and Newberry Wastewater System Interconnection Project. The City of Newberry is constructing a new regional wastewater treatment plant, and the City of Archer will collect and transmit wastewater from within its city limits to the wastewater treatment plant. Since the force main will extend through parts of unincorporated Alachua County along SR 45, the County Commission must approve it. Archer intends to transition many of its existing homes and businesses from septic systems to the new wastewater collection system, which has a public health benefit by reducing nutrient loading into the environment. 

Motion

Commissioner Mary Alford, who said that some septic tanks in Archer “are going straight into our aquifer and affecting water quality all over the region,” made a motion to approve the resolution, and Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler seconded the motion.

Commissioner Anna Prizzia said, “I find it curious that neither Archer nor Newberry are here for this item; it’s very bizarre to me, given that this is a multi, multi, multi-million dollar project that they’re working on.” She asked whether the County would be at risk of taking on any financial liability if the City of Archer’s charter is revoked, and Alford said that given the grant funding already established for this project, she thought it was “pretty low risk,… but the environmental cost to the County could be equally… a challenge. I think it’s much better to deal with this right now, while we’ve got the grant funding and everything is set up.”

The motion passed unanimously.

Transportation and disposal services for solid waste

Director of Solid Waste and Resource Recovery Gus Olmos said the County’s current agreement with the New River landfill expires at the end of 2028, and a study commissioned by Alachua County in 2025 resulted in a recommendation to keep working with New River and exercise the option to extend the agreement for five more years. However, in February, New River received the results of a rate study and changed the rates; the three counties that own the landfill — Baker, Bradford, and Union — will pay the current rate of $30 per ton, and Alachua County will pay $47 per ton, starting in 2029, with increases for the next five years. 

Olmos said $30 is an “extremely low rate,” and $47 “is kind of like in the neighborhood of what’s out there,” but the rate will continue to climb. He said he believed it’s “prudent to see what’s out there,” and the staff recommendation was to authorize staff to put out a Request For Proposal for transportation and disposal services for solid waste.

Olmos clarified that the County currently has a disposal services agreement with New River, but two of the alternative landfills are farther away, so he recommended that the County enter into a contract for transportation services instead of hauling the solid waste itself; Olmos added that this will result in a loss of drivers’ jobs.

Commissioner Anna Prizzia: “I understand that this is a cost issue, but we have a Climate Action Plan and a set of responsibilities associated with our environmental impact”

Prizzia said, “I understand that this is a cost issue, but we have a Climate Action Plan and a set of responsibilities associated with our environmental impact, and we’re already creating a massive environmental impact by taking our trash and trucking it out of the county instead of figuring out how to deal with it in our own backyard and reducing the volume of trash by a lot by thinking about the ways in which we reuse, recycle, or reduce that waste. So for me, if we’re going to move in a different direction, I would hope that… the climate and environmental impacts will be taken into consideration in that contract negotiation, along with price.”

Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler said she was disappointed that the County wasn’t taking advantage of innovations in recycling or getting assistance from the University of Florida: “It’s kind of frustrating that we have the same conversation over and over again, without actually moving in a direction that’s responsible for the county… It’s like Groundhog Day… This may be the time for us to actually do something different.”

Chair Ken Cornell said that Alachua County provides about 69% of New River’s volume, so that should be taken into account in negotiations; he said that if they need to raise their fees, it should be across the board, not “on Alachua County’s back.” 

Olmos said staff had talked to New River about that, and “we’re a big piece of their finances, but we also take a big chunk of their space, and they’re trying to balance getting the money and having landfill space for 10, 20, 30 years into the future.”

Prizzia said 30% of the county’s waste stream is organic, so “we’re hauling a bunch of food and food-related paper and things like that, that could very easily be composted… I think capturing [that waste] is the challenging part. It’s mainly commercial operations generating that waste; it’s not residential.” She pointed out that the City of Gainesville has a food waste ordinance, but they “didn’t have a very good process with that,… but it’s being done all over the world, it’s not rocket science… It’s just a matter of will, I think, and what we can do with the regulatory and incentive process.”

Landfill options in the county

Olmos said, “In 10 years, we’re not going to have a place to take this garbage out of the county, so we need to start thinking: what are we going to do with that material and manage it here?” He said it would take at least five years, between permitting, processing, and building, to implement any local options. 

The first option is to build a landfill in Balu Forest, “the piece of land that was bought specifically for that purpose… That is a logical place to build a landfill in Alachua County.”

The second option is the Southwest Landfill in Archer, which closed 30 years ago; Olmos said there’s still capacity there, and a technique called “landfill mining” can be used to recover usable material from the closed cells. Another benefit would be the opportunity to line the other cells, which are currently unlined. 

Alternative options, which he said would not replace the need for a landfill, include biological processing, chemical recycling, and refuse-derived fuel. Olmos concluded, “If we build a landfill, that doesn’t mean we stop doing composting or recycling, or all the other things, because the day after we open the landfill, our first priority is going to be to make it last as long as we can.”

Motion

Wheeler made a motion to authorize staff to advertise for the procurement of transportation and disposal services of the solid waste managed by Alachua County, and Commissioner Charles Chestnut seconded it “for discussion.”

Commissioner Mary Alford: “I feel like this is also an opportunity to compensate the City of Archer… Given their financial constraints and the fact that land values out there historically have been depressed by the location of that landfill, I think that we could figure out a way.”

Alford said the City of Archer and its residents wouldn’t be happy about reopening the landfill, but “I feel like this is also an opportunity to compensate the City of Archer… Given their financial constraints and the fact that land values out there historically have been depressed by the location of that landfill, I think that we could figure out a way… I think that’s a discussion they might be open to.” She added that lining the cells at the landfill could improve the groundwater quality in Archer.

Alford asked to amend the motion to “also seriously consider some of these options and analysis on how those could work.” Wheeler and Chestnut agreed.

Chestnut said people were “really, really upset” in the past about having a landfill in Alachua County, and Olmos agreed, “None of them is going to be easy. A lot of people are going to be opposed to all of [the options].”

Commissioner Prizzia: “How can we turn something that traditionally has been something that everyone says, ‘Not in my backyard,’ into something that could be a community benefit, that could be something that generates buzz and makes us a showpiece of what’s possible with waste reduction, waste reuse, and recycling?”

Prizzia said, “You know, trucking our trash to another place and just dumping it in somebody else’s community isn’t really any better of a solution… Dealing with our own waste is important in my opinion, but I also think we have to do it in a way that’s intelligent, and I think that means it’s going to take a lot more time… In the short term, I think going out for a bid makes a lot of sense, and I support the motion, and I support the motion of continuing to do this research, but I hope, as we do that, it’s not just — what are the costs of opening Balu versus what are the costs of mining Archer, but what does it look like to have those research collaborations?… How can we turn something that traditionally has been something that everyone says, ‘Not in my backyard,’ into something that could be a community benefit, that could be something that generates buzz and makes us a showpiece of what’s possible with waste reduction, waste reuse, and recycling?”

Cornell said, “I’ve heard that trucking our waste to another community is bad because they have to deal with it, and it’s also us saying, ‘Not in our backyard.’ But I will tell you that in 2018, when I was speaking to these three counties, they wanted it. It wasn’t like, ‘Don’t ship it to us so we have to deal with it.” It’s like, ‘Please negotiate with us because we want this.'” He said Putnam County is also interested in taking our solid waste. 

Cornell concluded, “You know, it’s too bad. All they had to do was come back and say, ‘Well, I’ll pay $35,’ you know, or something like that, and then this conversation would have been over, but they didn’t do that.”

The motion passed unanimously.

Water First North Florida and water use restrictions

During a presentation about Water First North Florida, Water Resources Program Manager Stacie Greco said the Water First North Florida project is in the planning phase; it would route 40 million gallons per day of treated wastewater from JEA through wetland treatment systems and into the aquifer in the Santa Fe basin; it is anticipated to offset the impacts of projected water use through 2045. She said the fate of the project is unclear, and there has been widespread opposition.

Water Resources Program Manager Stacie Greco about one-day-a-week watering: “[We’re] really not seeing landscapes dying… We’re not getting complaints from people.”

Greco said alternative strategies for recovery of the Lower Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers and Springs basin include reducing current and future demand, and she suggested limiting irrigation to one day a week, year-round. She said that is the current restriction because of the water shortage, and her staff are “really not seeing landscapes dying… We’re not getting complaints from people.” Greco also suggested prohibiting permanent landscape irrigation for new construction if minimum flow levels aren’t being met. 

Staff recommended approval of the following resolution:

Alachua County requests that the Water Management Districts implement the following to restore flow to the Lower Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers and Priority Springs (LSFIR):

• 1) restore provisions included in the July 2024 version of the LSFIR MFL Regulatory Strategy which prohibited new landscape irrigation wells when potable water is available and required existing users to offset a proportionate share of their impact,
• 2) exercise the WMD’s authority to curtail current permits as outlined in permit conditions,
• 3) water conservation plans shall be updated to include meaningful, measurable, and enforceable water conservation strategies that exceed current efforts,
• 4) implement once a week year-round irrigation restrictions or conduct a rule change to allow local governments to do such,
• 5) re-evaluate the definitions of beneficial use and public interest in reviewing permit allocations,
• 6) since the LSFIR MFL remains unmet, a reservation for the Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers should be considered, and
• 7) evaluate alternatives to the Water First North Florida Project along with filtration and siting strategies for beneficial re-use of reclaimed water from Jacksonville.  

Prizzia made a motion to approve the resolution, Alford seconded it, and the motion passed unanimously.

Potential impact of increased property tax exemptions

Assistant County Manager Tommy Crosby gave a presentation on the potential impact of the property tax constitutional amendment, using FY26 property values through FY29 and assuming no growth in property values over those three years, which overestimates the impact of the increased homestead exemptions.

Crosby said that with that assumption of zero growth in property values over three years, ad valorem tax revenues in FY28 would be about $42 million lower than FY26, and FY29 would be about $66 million lower. The impacts to the General Fund would be about $39 million and $53 million, respectively.

Alachua County’s FY2020 General Fund ad valorem revenues were $127.83 million, which would be $161.7 million in FY26 (using the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator), but Alachua County’s FY26 General Fund budget is $191.35 million, about $30 million over the inflation-adjusted amount. Although property values are not growing at the rate they were earlier in the 2020s, Crosby’s assumption of zero growth presents an overly pessimistic view of the impact of the amendment because it does not account for new construction.

Chair Ken Cornell: “From my perspective, and I think I speak for my colleagues, the most important expenditure that we make is the expenditure for our employees.”

Cornell spoke to Alachua County employees: “This budget cycle, we are moving forward with the values that this community has asked us to fund, and we’re going to stand up and take care of that during our budget cycle, and from my perspective, and I think I speak for my colleagues, the most important expenditure that we make is the expenditure for our employees… They are really important to this board, and their work is really important, because the citizens asked for it, and we will continue forward, and then we will deal with what we will deal with after this election.”

Land use and zoning changes for the UF Golf property

During the evening session, the board unanimously approved a land use change for the UF Golf property from Rural/Agriculture to UF Golf Institutional and a rezoning from Agriculture district to non-residential Planned Development district. Click here for more information about the site and its proposed use.