Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
Trulieve’s alleged contamination of a creek on an adjacent property was a topic of much discussion at the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners meeting on Thursday evening, April 16, with the board ultimately deciding to seek clarification from the pertinent state agencies as to why the problem exists and how it may be remedied.
Commissioner Austin Hosford started the conversation, noting the topic’s extensive publicity in recent weeks via social and regular media plus the involvements of State Representatives Jason Shoaf and Allison Tant and three state agencies. Hosford said that as a result of the publicity, he had decided to visit the site and see for himself the extent of the problem.
“What I saw looked extremely concerning,” Hosford said. “What I saw was Trulieve’s retention pond slam-full of water, which is strange because we’re in one of the most severe droughts of my lifetime. So, it’s hard to imagine how this retention pond is slam-full of rainwater.”
He had frankly been stunned by the volume of water steadily flowing from the pond onto the adjacent property, he said.
He wasn’t going to pretend to understand the detailed workings of retention ponds, Hosford said. It was his understanding, however, that such ponds were intended to hold rainwater runoff, he said. That said, he was highly doubtful that given the severity of the current drought, the water in the retention pond was rainwater, he said.
Equally concerning, he said, the overflow from the pond was so great that it had carved a channel through the adjacent property. He had to assume, he said, that the retention pond’s water was the same as was used for the plants in the facility, given its high nitrate content.
“When you look at some of the tests that have been done from the water coming off that property and going to this neighbor's property, it has tested extremely high for nitrates,” Hosford said. “This should be a concern to everybody in this community. This newly-formed creek is dumping into, and I don't know all their names, but it’s my understanding that it eventually finds its way to Lloyd Creek.”
He understood that Trulieve’s response had been that it was doing everything that it was permitted to do, he said. If such was the case, however, it was truly concerning, he said, as it was his understanding that retention ponds were supposed to prevent exactly what was happening.
He urged the board to take action and contact the various regulatory agencies that had to do with the facility’s permitting, such as the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) and have these agencies reexamine the facility and determine if it was operating in accordance with the permit requirements.
“I think this board deserves answers for its constituents so they know where this water is coming from, and if this is the proper way to dispose of it,’ Hosford said.
“I've also heard stories that ever since this video was posted, there's been water trucks running in and out of the Trulieve facility,” he added. “I would imagine that it's to try and mitigate some of the water that's causing the problems. If that is the case and they are hauling water off with their trucks, is this what they're supposed to do with the water, and where are they disposing of it?”
It was his belief, he said, that answers to these questions were needed for the sake of transparency and to satisfy constituents’ concerns about the facility. If Trulieve was truly within its right to haul water away or dump it onto a neighbor’s property, such should be stated publicly, he said.
“It’s a problem,” Hosford stated. “Trulieve, in my opinion, has wreaked havoc on Jefferson County as far as the smells and noise and now this water. So I would encourage this board to send a letter and find out what is actually going on.”
Bottom line, if a problem existed, Trulieve needed to fix it and not create a nightmare for the residents who lived near this facility, he said. Hosford let some of his frustration with Trulieve show.
“We just want Trulieve to come to the table and be a good neighbor,” he said. “Stop the smell and stop the runoff. It’s really simple. I’ll tell you, I went down a rabbit hole to get the smell problem under control. I went up the ladder to the highest engineer they have, and at the end of that rabbit hole, I was told, that ‘to mitigate the smell like you’re talking, it will just cost us too much money and we’re not going to spend it. Have a nice day.’ For a company that makes the amount of money that they make to have that kind of response is unacceptable. All we’re asking is that they be good neighbors. It’s basic humanity. A simple ask.”
It was simply frustrating, he added, to have a mega corporation unwilling to step up to the plate and not do what needed to be done.
Commissioner Jessica Gramling agreed that sending letters to the appropriate agencies for a determination on the effects of the water overflow was warranted. If it was a problem, it should be addressed, she said.
Commission Chairman Ben White offered what Trulieve officials had told him when he had approached them about the situation. He was by no means a water expert nor did he pretend to be, White said. He was merely reporting what Trulieve officials had told him, and that was that the retention pond solely treated rainwater, its function separate and apart from anything that went on in buildings, he said.
Moreover, according to what Trulieve had told him, when the SRWMS had tested the water coming out of the facilities and into the reclamation sites, the results had come back clean, he said. Trulieve understood that a problem existed and it had drained the pond, cleaned the filters and whatever they had to do, and it had functioned for a while, he said. But now the sand filters were apparently clogged again and the pond full, he said.
“They said they are trying to do everything that they can to get the pond pumped out without having to pump onto the neighbor’s property,” White said.
Nonetheless, he concurred with sending a letter to the appropriate agencies, as he didn’t want his own well contaminated, if such was the case, he said.
Kate Calvin, a Jefferson County property owner and publisher of the Jefferson Voice, suggested that the commission coordinate with area property owners to determine the severity and extent of potential contamination on Lloyd Creek and beyond. It was imperative, she said, that the impacted area be mapped to determine how far the damage went in order to protect the aquifer.
“Because what I’ve heard, and I know some of you have also heard, is that some well testing has already come back and you all need to gather what those test results are, as well as on the groundwater, in order to make a local map of how far along Lloyd Creek the nutrient levels are, the nitrates and phosphorous, above the threshold.”
She noted that per FDEP data that she had obtained, a sampling at Lloyd Creek near Lloyd Creek Road had tested positive for several ingredients. Consequently, it was critical to find out what was happening both above and below ground, she reiterated.
Carly Peary asked what kind of authority the board had to hold developers accountable to their agreements and make them be good neighbors after the fact.
“Do we have any protections other than relying on the corporation to do the right thing?” she asked.
It was at this point Hosford suggested the possible formation of a local environmental protection department like Leon County’s.
“It would help us regulate situations like we have here,” Hosford said, promising to continue to look into the idea. “It would give us an arm to be able to control developments that are going to possibly impact the community in a negative way. It would give us another arrow in the quiver to help us control development.”
Felicia Lamb, whose property is at the center of the problem with Trulieve, made a point of noting that the problem wasn’t new. In 2022 and 2023, she had approached the county about the situation and had received absolutely no response, she said. Hosford alone, she said, had taken an interest.
Her husband, James Lamb, identified himself as the trustee for the Floyd Trust property where the runoff from Trulieve is occurring. He said the problem with the marijuana facility dated from its construction. In fact, he and his wife had met with representatives of Trulieve, their engineer and Fred Beshears as far back as 2021, and they had received assurance that the problem would be fixed, Lamb said.
The situation, however, had not been corrected and continued to the present, he said.
Lamb said subsequent meetings with Beshears and other representatives of Trulieve had taken place since the initial one, citing the various measures that the facility had supposedly taken to resolve the problem to no avail. At one point, he said, the Trulieve engineer had told him that the situation was as good as it was going to get.
At that point, sometime around 2022, he had contacted the SRWMD, he said. In October 2023, he said, the SRWMD had opened a complaint on the facility, but it wasn’t until March 2024 that the district had actually sent Trulieve a letter, he said. Trulieve had then proposed making certain changes to correct the problem and it had been given six months to do so, he said.
“Which was very generous of the water management district,” Lamb said.
Trulieve, he said, had then received an additional 90-day extension because of supposed difficulty in obtaining the needed pumps. After 90 days, he said, the pump still hadn’t been shipped and Trulieve asked for more time. Other issues had also surfaced to further delay completion of the fixes, he said. Bottom line, Lamb said, Trulieve hadn’t been ready for the inspection until July 2025.
“Almost a year after the complaint,” he said.
Following the inspection, he said, Trulieve had wanted the water management district to close the complaint. Except that the problem persisted, he said, notwithstanding Trulieve having drained the pond, cleaned the filters, etc.
Lamb noted that he kept a log of the water flows from the pond, which he regularly measured. Typically, he said, the flow was 25 gallons per minute, although during Hosford’s recent visit, the flow had been down to 10 gallons a day.
“A fraction of the average flow,” he said.
This fall, he said, the water had stopped flowing for about a week, and he had thought the problem finally had been corrected. After a week, however, the flow had resumed, he said.
“We have tried to resolve this with our neighbor and at this point, we are assured that it has been resolved,” Lamb said, “but it has not been resolved.”
Hosford vowed to continue bringing up the issue at every commission meeting until Trulieve truly corrected the problem.