PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Pinellas County leaders say they are working to find other solutions to help commercial haulers after closing the county's dump site to storm debris on Tuesday.
'That's never happened': Pinellas County closes main dump to storm debris as trash piles up
That day, the county provided one location for commercial haulers to bring storm debris. Wednesday, two more were added.
On Thursday, Chris Nemethy, of Big Dumpz Trailer Rentals, told the ABC Action News I-Team the barriers need to be removed before the Tampa Bay area gets inundated with more rain.
“All of the debris that’s laying out, it’s going to flood, it’s going to end up spread out everywhere, it’s going to end up in our waterways," Nemethy said.
Nemethy started posting videos to his social media, to update people on what commercial haulers are encountering in Pinellas County — being met with hurdles, as they work to help families recover. In his videos, he encourages others to contact county leaders.
“I have questions about, when we bring in government contracts and, you know, there’s funding issues and stuff like that — why. You know, we’re already cleaned up, working in that direction, why would we put it back," Nemethy said. "That’s why we need these answers, it’s why I told people to reach out to local government officials, to see if we could get those answers to push things forward.”
As the days pass, Nemethy said mold is growing on debris piled high on street curbs and there are other health concerns.
“There are dozens and dozens and dozens of rats hopping pile to pile, scouring the streets," he said.
Nemethy told the I-Team when he showed up at the county's dump site early Tuesday morning, he was told to take the debris back to people's homes and that FEMA would be handling it.
When asked what went through his mind, Nemethy said, “Absolutely not. It was just… why would we do that? We literally at that point, I would say, with confidence, hundreds of trucks lined up at the landfill, full of debris, already cleaned up."
Pinellas County said it is following strict requirements by FEMA and can only accept debris from unincorporated parts of the county.
“If you hire someone with a truck and a trailer and you want to ride with them to the location and show your ID and say this is my debris, and this individual is hauling it for me, that’s perfectly fine. We will absolutely accept that. The challenge has been that commercial haulers have been showing up at these locations with multiple households full of stuff and we can’t document where it came from," Pinellas County Public Works Director Kelli Hammer Levy said on Thursday.
Pinellas County: Sand and Storm Debris Cleanup
“There’s plenty of space that we could be offloading this material," Nemethy said of the county's land. “So they’re saying we want this here, we want that there, so on and so forth — let’s get it out of here and away from the water, let these homeowners get back to normal, as close to normal as we can, let’s start the repairs, versus bringing all this bad energy and bad memories and dumping everything back on their lawn when they already lost everything.”
Levy acknowledged in a news conference on Thursday that the county needs a better plan.
“We are working on other alternatives, we’ve been working on it for at least 24 hours now to try to find another solution for commercial haulers and we’ve been discussing also with the state what options we have available," she said.
Levy said the flooding Pinellas County received from Helene is unprecedented.
"That is a huge challenge, as we do not have these large disposal sites in Pinellas County," Levy said.
Levy said Hurricane Irma generated approximately 600,000 cubic yards of primarily vegetative debris. Helene has generated several million cubic yards, Levy said, that is primarily construction and demolition and white goods.
“Our landfill is not set up to handle this magnitude of a storm and still maintain services for — general services for all of the solid waste needs in the county," she said.
In the news conference, Levy said they expect to open a third dump site for homeowners on Friday. She had this message for people living in Pinellas County, who have been asked to now sort their debris in order for it to be picked up by the county:
“It’s incredibly important, I know it’s frustrating, you’ve already put your debris out and now we’re asking you to handle it again and I’m sorry. But if it’s not sorted properly, our FEMA contractors cannot take this debris and take it to our site for disposal, so please help us help you. We have staff out there stopping into these neighborhoods today, again they were there yesterday, we’re going to continue to be there to answer your questions, talk with you about it and try to help you manage this, we want to get it off of your property as soon as possible, but we’re all going to have to be patient. This is a huge effort to be able to get all of this debris out of our communities and if we can get it properly sorted, we can get it out faster. So thank you very much and again, we’re very sorry for everything that you’re going through and we’re doing our best to help you.”
Visit the county's website to learn more about when you can anticipate pickup and important information about how to sort your debris so it is collected.
Pinellas County: Sand and Storm Debris Cleanup
This story started with a tip. If you have something you'd like the I-Team to investigate, contact Kylie:
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