Orange County residents and business owners packed a meeting room Thursday to oppose plans for an enclosed sewage treatment plant near South Orange Blossom Trail.
The Board of Zoning Adjustment delayed its hearing until Dec. 5 at the applicant’s request but still welcomed comments from opponents who packed the meeting room. Most wore T-shirts that said “Say no to sewage treatment plant. Protect our air, water and community.”
The three-acre property at 10002 Satellite Blvd. is in an area zoned industrial, but it’s next door to the Orlando offices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
It also backs up to restaurants and shops on South Orange Blossom Trail.
Residents -- like Mayte Montero -- were concerned about odors along with environmental and business impacts.
“We don't need it in our community,” she said, “because we don't have the guarantee the environment is going to be health(y) for our kids, for our people, for our employees and for our community.”
The drive-through facility would operate around the clock to treat and temporarily store waste from portable toilets, septic systems and grease traps.
Waste Resources Management is behind the special exemption application. It "owns and operates a portfolio of companies focused on the processing, recycling, and/ or transport of liquid waste," according to its website.
Speaking for the applicant, Logan Opsahl said high-efficiency air-scrubbers would take care of the odors.
“This is an environmental service,” he said at the meeting, “and so I appreciate the message received on your t-shirts today of air, water, community. That is the focus of this service. Waste Resources Management is focused on water recycling.”
The special exemption, if given final approval by the County Commission, would require all the activities -- unloading, loading, storing and processing the waste -- to occur inside the 11,140-square-foot building.
County staff recommended approval with certain conditions.
View the application in the agenda document, beginning at page 261.
