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City of Apopka vs. Anuvia: How did it get here?

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Everything seemed so friendly. So collaborative. So cooperative.

The City of Apopka and Anuvia Plant Solutions acknowledged there was a problem. It seemed that the water discharged from Anuvia was causing the problems at the wastewater treatment facility, but since the summer of 2016, the two worked together to solve them.

But all of that changed on Monday when the City of Apopka sent a cease discharge order to Anuvia without any prior notice.

Since then, friendly cooperative collaboration has been replaced by an adversarial, tactical silence.

The timeline for the last three weeks shows the surprising shift in attitude.

At the February 15th City Council meeting, Mayor Joe Kilsheimer read into the record a three-page document entitled “Fact Sheet: City of Apopka” that addressed the proposed fines by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection but also referenced Anuvia prominently.

In part, the statement said:

“During this series of events, the City explored the possibility of the system being compromised by a new and significant commercial customer, Anuvia Plant Nutrients, a multi-million-dollar fertilizer manufacturer based in Zellwood. The company’s leadership has been very cooperative since this issue was raised.”

In its draft report to the City, independent engineering consultant Woodard & Curran also concluded that Anuvia played a role in the wastewater facility’s issues.

“The start-up of the Anuvia facility has resulted in increased BOD and/or COD, TKN, and ammonia to the existing wastewater facility,” the report states. “Their (Anuvia's) existing permit was established with an effluent limit of several thousand mg/L of BOD. Quite apparently, this was too high. The permit needs to be reviewed and modified to limits less than 1,000 mg/L of BOD and COD, and lower limits on TKN and ammonia.”

Kilsheimer acknowledged that Anuvia has been cooperative, and the Woodard & Curran report concluded that the permit levels were too high.

Gary Dahms, Executive Vice President at Anuvia, pointed out the next day (February 16th) that Anuvia's discharge was within the parameters of its permit, but would continue to work with the City to remedy the issue.

“Our daily testing shows that we are well below our compliance levels from the city and the state in every chemical and element specifically listed in our permit. That said, our suspicion is the level of chemical oxygen demand is the issue. COD is absolutely harmless to humans – a can of soda has 15 times the amount of chemical oxygen demand that is found in our wastewater. As such, there is no mention of chemical oxygen demand in any of our permits with the city or state. However, it does cause issues to wastewater treatment facilities as it affects the microbes in the facility. Whatever the testing shows, Anuvia is committed to finding a solution at our facility and to make needed improvements to the city’s facility to ensure they can handle the discharge that was permitted in the spring of 2014.”

He went on to say that Anuvia officials and City officials were in constant communication, and looked forward to working with the city as Anuvia moved forward in the negotiations for a new permit. He also said Anuvia was working on solutions independently, and at a sizeable cost to the company.

“We are constantly working on the issues at hand. One successful example was adding lime to our water. After this happened, the city wastewater treatment plant did not have an upset for nearly a month. After reducing the lime, the plant experienced its first upset after starting with the lime. With such a correlation, we are investing several hundred thousand dollars in automating the lime in our water.”

Kilsheimer also disclosed that the idea of taking Anuvia offline until a solution could be found had been discussed, and ruled out.

“The City considered shutting Anuvia off from our system 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. 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”

Anuvia leadership is cooperative. Communication is consistent. Anuvia is working on the problem on its own and in collaboration with the City. Apopka wants to be a good business partner. All of this sounds so fundamental on how to work together and overcome a problem.

So what changed?

At Wednesday's (March 1st) City Council meeting, the same collaborative tone remained. Despite Council's questions of who is responsible for the plant's upset, the idea seemed to stay that the new permit would solve the problem of future disturbances at the facility.

"We did a 14-day composite sampling in January on Anuvia, and we came to the realization that they were severely organically overloading our plant," said Assistant Public Services Director Kevin Burgess. "We can't get it out of here fast enough. We've been in meetings and discussions this week and last. Their new permit is drafted. There are conditions put on them that are going to be enforceable. We'll get this problem under control, and we'll get control of our wastewater treatment plant back."

Mayor Kilsheimer brought a different perspective to the discussion and a brief history of Anuvia and the City of Apopka.

"There is other information that has never come to light, and that is Anuvia has already paid the City of Apopka $1.5 million in impact fees. That occurred when the city issued their permit. The City of Apopka signed Anuvia up as a customer in March of 2014... which again is before I was elected. We cemented our relationship in October of 2014 with this payment of $1.5 million, and then we issued the permit sometime in 2015.

On Friday morning (March 3rd) at 9:30 AM, Burgess sent a cordial email to Dahms with the draft permit renewal attached. Things seemed to be going as expected.

"Good morning Gary,

Please find attached the draft permit renewal for Anuvia. Please review this draft, as there are significant changes to the limits and other specific conditions contained in it. Please return comments to me by Monday, March 6, 2017. If you require additional time for your review, please provide me with a specific date that you will submit comments."

Thank you,

Kevin Burges, Assistant Public Services Director, City of Apopka

So what happened over the weekend to change matters so drastically?

"We received the proposed permit at approximately 9:30 a.m. on Friday and the cease letter approximately noon on Monday," said Anuvia CEO Amy Yoder.

On Monday she released this statement:

“It’s unfortunate the city decided to issue this less than one business day after providing a proposed permit and without any warning,” she said. “As the letter is quite ambiguous, we are working through exactly what that means for us. But, we designed this facility and invested $100 million based on levels the city mistakenly thought they could handle. They have had three years and have been paid more than $1 million to ensure they could process our water. Obviously, that did not happen and now we feel we are being punished for their internal issues."

Yoder confirmed that executives from Anuvia and representatives from the City will meet tomorrow and that the plant is now offline, but she remains in the dark about the sudden about-face by the City. In its letter to Anuvia, it referenced an upset at the plant, but Yoder is skeptical that Anuvia is the cause of the disruption.

"We were told the plant had a major upset," she said. "It takes three days for our water to reach the plant. It is particularly strange that we were the focus of the upset when we ran less than three hours on Wednesday, which would have affected the plant on Saturday. We have always been willing to work with the city to the best of our ability, so if there needed to be a temporary shut down to assist the city, we would have been receptive and would have taken the request very seriously."

The Apopka Voice contacted Apopka Public Information Officer Robert Sargent by email and asked him these questions:

Does Mayor Kilsheimer have a response to the cease discharge letter sent to Anuvia?

Did something happen (change) over the weekend to cause this action?

Why would the City send the permit proposal to Anuvia on Friday, and then a cease discharge letter on Monday?

Does this change the timetable on the new permit for Anuvia?

Will they be allowed to come back online?

If so, how long is this cease discharge expected to last?

At the time of publication, Sargent had not provided answers to these questions. His last statement on Anuvia was on Monday;

"We as staff view this is an unfortunate set of circumstances, but ordering Anuvia to discontinue sending discharge to the City’s wastewater system is unavoidable. As we have made clear for weeks, the City has been working with the company for quite some time to avoid this decision, but it is no longer an option and should not be a surprise to Anuvia. Elements of Anuvia’s waste exceed the plant’s capacity. Allowing them to continue would put the City in violation of DEP regulations. We appreciate their investment in northwest Orange County and hope to resolve this issue as soon as possible."

 

Anuvia, Apopka City Council, Wastewater Treatment Facililty

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