City's problem piles up

The equestrian festival at the Village of Wellington generates 400 tons of horse manure a day. But where does it go?

WELLINGTON - The buildings rise behind wrought iron gates and perfectly shaped ficus trees like points of interest on a Hollywood Homes of the Stars tour. Intricate tile roofs, wide, circular driveways. And if you must know, several are in the $2-million to $3-million range.

The only clues as to who lives here are the windows. Some are barred, nearly all have shutters, but only a few have glass panes.

Because these are horse barns.

Every year since 1972, from early January through late March, the Village of Wellington has been host to one of the largest and most prestigious equestrian events in the world, the Winter Equestrian Festival. The best riders in the world compete here. So do the daughters of Bruce Springsteen, Glenn Close, Calvin Klein and Dan Marino.

Combined with polo and recreational riding in the area, horses generate an estimated $500-million economic impact within Palm Beach County.

They also generate something else.

The more than 8,000 horses and ponies stabled in and around Wellington during the Equestrian Festival produce about 400 tons of manure per day. Or in Palm Beach parlance, the weight of about 179 Mercedes CL600 Coupes. The manure contains phosphorus, which encourages the growth of algae and must be disposed of without damaging waterways like the Arthur Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, which forms the southern boundary of Wellington.

So where does more than 36,000 tons of horse manure produced over three months end up?

People who own and care for the horses say they don't know. Officials within state and local government can't say for certain, either.

"It's an ongoing problem," said Ken Roundtree, public works director for the Village of Wellington. "This is the horse capital of the world."

Roundtree said the village contracts with haulers to truck the waste to "different locations outside of Wellington. But where exactly it goes, I really don't know.

"We think we're getting a grip on the problem. Before we passed an ordinance, some people were just stockpiling their horse waste on their property.

"But we have no enforcing powers, and there is no large site to bring it to. We're hoping there is some regional answer to it."

Even people who have enforcement powers say the problem is like a huge, somewhat smelly shell game.

"There is a tremendous amount of waste being generated and no place to put it," said John O'Malley, an environmental administrator for Palm Beach County whose job includes investigating cases of illegal dumping.

"We have cited people in the past," O'Malley said. "Illegal dumping is a third-degree felony. But it's very difficult to prosecute because people find protection under the Florida Right to Farm Act.

"In reality, there's an awful lot of horse manure being generated in a short period of time and there's no real viable plan or method available to deal with it.

"Someone has to step up, and something has to be done."

The ins and outs of Wellington.

Thirty years ago, about 10,000 people lived in the area, which is about 10 miles west of West Palm Beach, the last stop before miles of marsh and swampland. Today, the population is close to 130,000.

Wellington is an aptly named community. The median household income is $77,572, existing homes sell for an average of $321,000, and it's not just people who are doing well.

Many of the horses that come to Wellington for the equestrian festival are worth more than $100,000. Besides the usual grooming and exercising, they receive acupuncture treatment and message therapy and are checked regularly throughout the night, the observations noted on sheets that hang from stall doors.

2:35 a.m. Standing and quiet.

But it's what goes on outside the 90-acre facility that concerns environmentalists and regulators.

"The problem as I see it is that Wellington has to have at least a collection point at a central location, and have the material transported to a permanent facility," said Joe Lurix of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. "Right now there is no place to put it, treat it or extract the resources from it.

"No one is faulting the haulers. But the reality is there is no regional or local treatment process in that community, and there is an absolute need for that.

"I still don't think what they (Wellington) came up with is effective. They need a central collection point."

It's not that horse owners disagree.

It's that often, there are other priorities.

A cell phone in one hand, Darcy Knowles steers her customized golf cart to the edge of a schooling ring to watch her 15-year-old daughter, Maddie, put her horse through a series of practice jumps.

"In Pennsylvania, I think they take horse poo to mushroom houses," said Knowles, who moved here from Philadelphia six years ago. "But here, who knows."

She smiled and waved as her daughter rode past.

"Frankly, we don't talk a great deal about that," she said. "I'm sure it's properly taken care of.

"Wellington is one of the prettiest place in the world, don't you think?"

In a barn a short distance away, groom Erica Quinn strains at the handles of a wheelbarrow filled with wet straw and manure. For the second time today, she has cleaned the stall of Harry Winston, one of seven horses she cares for. Quinn, 16, lives part of the year with her family in Cincinnati, and part of the year here.

She says the owner of the horses lives in Cleveland and flies to Wellington on weekends to show them. "I ride them during the week and take care of them," said Quinn, who wants to be a professional rider some day. "This is how you get your start."

She pushes the wheelbarrow to a covered concrete platform that serves as a manure collection point for dozens of horses stabled nearby. The haulers had come several hours earlier, but the pile is already several feet high.

"This is the worst part of my job," she said as she added her load to the pile. "And to be honest, I have no idea where all this goes."

In 2000, the Village of Wellington passed an ordinance that set rules regulating the storage and removal of horse manure. Under the ordinance, livestock waste must be kept in a storage area that doesn't allow rainfall to seep through. The manure can be moved only by one of several livestock waste haulers registered with the village.

But where the waste goes after it leaves Wellington can vary, and state and county officials say that makes it too tempting to simply dump it at the most convenient location.

"As far as I know, there's been no illegal dumping as of the last six months," said Clete Saunier, district administrator for the Loxahatchee Groves Water Control District, which borders Wellington.

"But some of these haulers go to places that are very well concealed. Some of the tracts are far off the road and overgrown.

"If you didn't look real close, you'd miss them."

Walter Duque is a hauler who has a contract with Wellington. He removes about 200 cubic yards of manure a week, mixes it with soil, and sells it throughout the area.

"Problems? No," Duque said. "Many people use it for planting."

Even the state.

Duque said two years ago, he sold tons of manure to the Florida Department of Transportation when they were building U.S. 441 from Wellington to Boca Raton. "They put in on the shoulders," he said, "and now the grass is very pretty."

Duque said he now sells manure throughout the area. Mostly to nurseries.

"There are more nurseries here than people," he said with a chuckle.

At issue is not just where the manure ends up. It's how much of it accumulates.

"It was so bad about two years ago that the smell drove two women out of their house near where I live," said Dr. Bill Louda, an environmental biochemist who teaches at Florida Atlantic University and lives just outside of Wellington in Loxahatchee.

"They (the haulers) brought in truck after truck to the property next door and then just dumped it and left."

Louda said that because Wellington is assuming the waste will be taken to a place licensed to receive it, the village has shifted responsibility to the haulers.

"We've got to make sure the materials are going to legally prescribed receivers," Louda said. "I have no idea if that's happening."

Louda recently completed an environmental study of the canals in the area. He found elevated levels of phosphorus.

"It's not a big threat yet," he said, "but what we're worried about is adding more. Horse manure is high in phosphorus and that's a big problem in southern Florida. The Everglades evolved on being extremely phosphorus limited."

Environmentalists point to two facts they hope will make people take Wellington's dilemma seriously.

Before it was filled in back in the 1870s, Wellington was part of the Everglades.

And because of their diet, recreational horses create three times more phosphorus than dairy cows.

Officials from Wellington, Palm Beach County and the state say they are working on a solution. But progress is slow.

"I think we all agree that the biggest thing that's needed is a treatment or processing facility in close proximity to these events that can render the material safe and usable for the county and the state," said O'Malley, the Palm Beach County environmentalist. "Make something good out of it. But it has to be managed.

"I don't understand why that's not being done."

A few seconds later, O'Malley answered his own question.

"Ultimately, it should come down to the horse owners," he said. "But it should also involve Wellington. And I'm not opposed to the county helping. It just makes so much more sense.

"But it's going to be expensive.

"And we have to figure out who pays for it."

Florida headlines

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright