Stuart News Agency

Under an agreement between the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Environmental Protection Agency and Waste Management, the ash will be trucked from a barge in the St.  Lucie Waterway to the company's waste-to-energy plant in Pompano Beach.

There, it will be re-burned, then disposed of in an adjacent landfill.

Environmental officials and the company said the process will meet all legal and regulatory requirements.

"We believe this plan represents the best disposal option available," Melissa Meeker, director of the DEP's Southeast District, said in a statement released by the DEP.

The ash originated in Philadelphia and is the remains of incinerated municipal waste.

In the summer of 1986, the vessel Khian Sea left Philadelphia carrying the ash on a journey that would eventually lead it around the world, as country after country refused to accept the waste material because environmentalists had spread word that it contained toxic materials.

Eventually, it arrived in Haiti, where it sat on a beach for months before being picked up again.  Another vessel carrying the ash sailed across the Indian Ocean, where officials suspect some of the material was illegally dumped.

The ash eventually returned to the United States aboard the Greek-owned ship the Captain P.  It was taken to Port Everglades in Broward County but was not removed from the ship because it didn't have the proper authorization for a disposal site.

The ash was moved to Fort Pierce, where it was shifted to five small barges, which eventually were sailed into the St. Lucie Waterway.  The ash was then put back aboard one barge, which has been docked in the waterway for eight months.

"Waste Management is happy to be part of an environmentally responsible solution," Glenn Holcomb, the company's president for Florida, said in the DEP's statement.