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By Scott Wyman and Neil Santaniello, Sun-Sentinal, Broward Metro Edition

Federal and state environmental regulators agreed Thursday to allow Waste Management Inc.  to haul the 3,000 tons of ash to an incinerator it runs in Pompano Beach.  It will be burned again and buried in the neighboring landfill.

The company could begin trucking the ash here by the end of next week.

The ash has been forced from ports across the Caribbean sometimes at gunpoint and rejected by other states because of concern that it's contaminated.  Florida officials say it's harmless, but that's of little comfort to environmental activists and county commissioners who were stunned to learn of the plan.
"I'm glad we can aid in finally finding a home for Philadelphia's garbage," Sierra Club member Rod Tirrell said with a touch of irony.

"I'm very proud.  Isn't this a great way out of 15 years of chaos?"

The ash has been sitting on barges in Stuart since last May after it was dug up from a pit in Haiti and returned to the United States.

State environmental officials called the plan "the best disposal option available" for the ill-fated ash and said they saw it as the responsible thing to do even if the waste is not from the state.  They were concerned about the ash staying on barges in the St.  Lucie Canal and wanted a resolution.

"The ash we're talking about is the exact same ash they normally come up with every day" at the Broward incinerator, said Melissa Meeker, director of the Department of Environmental Protection's Southeast Florida office.  "It just happens to come from Philadelphia via Haiti and everywhere." No hazard seen Gov.  Jeb Bush's office did not respond to requests for comment.

The state determined the ash is not hazardous or infectious after having it tested at four separate labs.  The ash is described as a black aggregate material that is mixed with some glass and limestone.

The agreement between the state and Waste Management calls for the ash to be moved from the barge to about 170 covered trucks for the haul to Broward County.  It will be mixed with garbage normally burned at the Wheelebrator North incinerator over three weeks.

Meeker said the ash would be re-incinerated to reduce its bulk and as a precaution because it's been traveling around for years.

Five percent of the ash will be mixed in each day.  When buried, it will take up as much room as a half-day's worth of local garbage.

The saga of ash began in 1985 when Philadelphia was faced with a trash crisis after the landfill it had long used closed.  A cargo ship, the Khian Sea, set sail a year later with 14,000 tons of ash in search of a place to bury it.

The ship sailed around the world for more than two years.

Caribbean nations turned the ship away because of concerns raised by environmentalists that the ash contained toxic levels of mercury, lead and other contaminants.  The Bahamas, Bermuda, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Guinea-Bissau and the Netherlands Antilles all said no.

About 4,000 tons was buried in Haiti before that country forced the ship to leave.  Haitian authorities had been led to believe the cargo was fertilizer.

The rest of the cargo continued the journey, traveling along the East Coast of the United States, through the Mediterranean to Yugoslavia and through the Suez Canal before showing up in Singapore without the ash.
The captain later said he had dumped it in the Indian and Atlantic oceans.

The disposal of the ash in Haiti was the first documented case, outside of Mexico, of the U.S.  dumping its garbage in a Third World country.  Environmentalists pressed for more than a decade for the ash to be returned to the United States and won out when a company run by one of the original contractors agreed to help retrieve it.

Waste Management bought that company and has spent the past year searching for a home for the ash.  Georgia refused to accept it, as did several Florida counties.

State officials said disposing of the ash will cost the company $500,000.  Don Payne, a spokesman for Waste Management, said the ownership of the waste is in dispute.  He said the company had no legal obligation and was under no pressure to act. 

"We've come forward because we think it is the environmentally right thing to do," he said.

County commissioners said they are exploring whether they can stop the ash, but fear they have no say because Waste Management owns the Pompano Beach landfill.

Commissioner Lori Parrish said the decision bodes ill for Waste Management in its future relations with the county, and Commission Chairman John Rodstrom said he could only support such a move if Broward's often icy relations with state government thaw as a result.

The commission may take a stand next week.

"The county and cities a long time ago said we would be proactive and make sure the needs of our county in terms of waste would be met,"

Commissioner Kristin Jacobs said.  "Now we are being punished because we have been so responsible." Mercury concern Commissioners said they disagreed with the state's assessment that there is no potential for environmental problems.

They argue that the ash could threaten the Everglades if it contains mercury and is burned again.  They also said it could threaten the Biscayne Aquifer that supplies area drinking water.

"We have enough problems of our own that we don't need to take Philadelphia's," Commissioner Suzanne Gunzburger said.  "I'm not pleased at all to hear this."

Ann Leonard, who has followed the history of the ash for years as co-director of the Essential Action environmental group, said the county has cause for concern.  She said re-incinerating the waste is particularly bad because of the chance that the waste contains mercury.

"I'm flabbergasted by how stupid this is," she said.  "I'd like to see the waste go back to Philadelphia because they created it and we're now sending a message to cities that it's OK to dump your waste on other communities."

The suggestion that the ash return to Philadelphia has been raised repeatedly to no avail since 1985.  An aide to Philadelphia Mayor John Street said he couldn't defend the decision to bury the waste in Broward, but also didn't offer to take back the trash.

"I can't say I'm happy that's the outcome, that the final resting place is Florida," Street aide John Christmas said.  "I wish there was some great place to go where it is welcomed."

State regulators wanted a solution because they have had little say over the waste as it sat in the St.  Lucie Canal, which links Lake Okeechobee to the St.  Lucie River.  Officials could only check up on the ash periodically to assure it was confined to its container, the cavity of the hopper barge.

The barge could not move back through the Stuart Locks into the Atlantic Ocean.  And environmentalists there said they are glad to see the ash leave because they had been concerned it would contaminate the river.

"It shouldn't have ended up here," said Kevin Henderson, executive director the St.  Lucie River Initiative.  "It's an nightmare story, that's for sure."

Scott Wyman can be reached at swyman@sun-sentinel.com or
954-356-4511.