The city of Apopka on Monday issued a letter telling Anuvia Plant Nutrients that the city would no longer accept the Zellwood company’s effluent from its fertilizer-manufacturing facility on Jones Avenue.
Kevin Burgess, Apopka’s assistant Public Services director, wrote Gary Dahms, Anuvia’s executive vice president of engineering and operations, that Anuvia must “cease discharge of its process effluent to the city’s wastewater collection system immediately and until such time the process effluent can meet the requirements contained in the permit.”
In the letter, Burgess told Anuvia that the “effluent can be hauled to a facility that is capable of proper treatment of the high organic content contained in it.”
Amy Yoder, Anuvia’s chief executive officer, said in a statement emailed to The Apopka Chief that the letter caught the company off guard.
“Today’s action caught us completely unaware as we believed we were in negotiations for a new permit, which we had just been provided a proposal for the new permit on Friday,” Yoder said.
“It’s very disappointing that we invested $100 million in this area and designed our facility to meet the city’s specifications, only to be told we must cease operations because they cannot process what they agreed to in their contract. We believed we were paying the city $1.5 million so they could ensure they could process our water.
“At this time, we are still working to interpret the full ramifications of the letter and are looking at all options that are available to us both with Apopka and other entities.”
Burgess’ letter to Anuvia comes less than three weeks after Mayor Joe Kilsheimer said during a City Council meeting on February 15 that the city considered shutting Anuvia off from its system at that time, but “determined that doing so would significantly affect their business operations. Because we believed no health issues existed, we made the responsible decision to examine the system through other procedures and avoid interrupting a customer’s business,” the mayor said.
Kilsheimer also said at that meeting that the permits limits are not stringent enough and that the limits are being negotiated.
“Apopka is committed to the safety of its residents and employees. We are also committed to being a good business partner. Shutting Anuvia down completely would have hurt their business, and prevented a proper evaluation of the problem,” the mayor said at the February 15 meeting.
The letter came on the day that the original permit expires.
The Apopka Chief will publish an expanded version of this story in the Friday, March 10, issue.
