The notice stated that officials with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the county Sheriff’s Office and Public Health inspected the South Lutheran Church Road property and found solid waste debris placed on the ground. This is in violation of the county’s sanitary regulations and the state’s solid waste regulations.
“This is a vacant agricultural property, but Fullmer’s had been using it for a stock pile site for materials that they use in their landscaping business,” said Kenton Domer-Shank, sanitarian supervisor in Public Health’s Bureau of Special Services. “One of our inspectors did go out to the site and did find that there was an accumulation of solid waste in addition to some dirt stock piled and some brush and tree debris.”
Fullmer’s has 30 days from the Feb. 17 date to remove the material.
Susan Dafler, Fullmer’s Nursery manager, told this newspaper Friday that the company is going to put up gates to prevent dumping on the South Lutheran Church Road property. She also said the company has plans to get a dumpster to help remove the debris, some of which was put there by people who don’t work for Fullmer’s.
“We’ve been working on mounds around the property, then we have to put up a gate because people have been in there dumping their trash, tires. You name it,” Dafler said.
Dafler said the company used the site to recycle its own waste from landscape sites.
“It’s not for public use at all,” she said. “It’s on one Fullmer’s properties used to grow trees on. Now we’re just using it to dump our recycling waste.”
Several residents complained about the site during the March 3 Jefferson Township Trustee meeting, calling it an illegal dump site and insinuating that its an environmental health hazard.
“I looked out into my yard 10 years ago when I bought my house,” said Chris Gengler, a resident of South Lutheran Church Road. “It was beautiful. You had nice trees over there. The sun coming up in the morning it was beautiful. Now there’s nothing but a dirt pile. My house probably isn’t worth a nickel now.”
“The only way to stop these guys is in their pockets,” Fred Iker, another resident of South Lutheran Church Road, said during the March 3 meeting.
No one representing Fullmer’s identified themselves at the trustee meeting.
Dafler said they are trying to maintain the property in good condition.
“I understand their concern,” she said. “We’ve been trying to keep the property straightened-up as much as possible, but we’ve been so busy that we haven’t really had anybody down there full-time. Our goal is to have someone down there continuously to keep the place looking better. I think we care what’s going on. We just haven’t followed through with what we should have been following through upon. But, we do care about what we’re doing out there.”
Fullmer’s has until April 15 to respond to another notice of violation issued Jan. 27 by the Ohio EPA concerning the company’s headquarters at 9547 W. Third St. The Ohio EPA also addressed those concerns again in another letter dated Feb. 4 and addressed to Kent Fullmer, owner.
The Jan. 27 letter stated that some purple discharge found in Little Bear Creek was traced back to Fullmer’s Third Street site. Reynolds said the discharge was Potassium Permanganate that was being discharged “as a part of a backwash cycle from a newer water treatment system installed at the facility a couple of years ago. The Permanganate is used to oxidize iron in the well water at the facility.”
A Feb. 4 letter said that Dafler and another Fullmer employee met with Dan Osika and Mark Verbsky of the state EPA’s Division of Drinking and Ground Waters on Jan. 28 to discuss drinking water and waste water permitting issues.
The Feb. 4 letter also said the water treatment system with the purple back wash had been turned off, thus eliminating the discharge to Little Bear Creek.
Dafler told this newspaper that the company is taking steps to change the system that was dumping out the Potassium Permanganate.
“On April 15, we won’t require them to submit detailed plans at that point, but we expect them to make a decision on how they want to proceed,” said Dina Pierce, Ohio EPA spokeswoman. “We fully expect them to follow through with what they’re going to do.”
Part of the West Third Street property is located in the city of Trotwood, which has had no violations or complaints on that property in the last 10 to 20 years, according to Jeannie Peyton, the city’s interim Planning & Zoning administrator.
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