The Polk County Board of County Commissioners will decide on the moratorium at a public hearing on July 21, 2010 in Bartow.

Tom Mims plans to construct a $35 million combination landfill and recycling facility on 800 acres of his property.    The property is surrounded by lands designated as industrial and phosphate mining. 

The facility will be located in the northwest portion of his 1741 acre tract.  The project will require a landfill permit from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, however, the owner is considering sending any unrecyclable material to the Polk County landfill.

According to the owner, engineering will begin within the next two weeks.  However, no ground-breaking date has been set.

The proceedings consisted of a Comprehensive Plan amendment from Phosphate Mining (PM) to Institutional (INST), a change from INST-1 to INST-2, and a conditional use permit for the proposed facility.  The votes for the land use changes were 4-1, with Commissioner Edwin Smith voting no.   Smith previously voted no on another Mims proposal to change approximately 300 acres from the land use designation PM to Industrial.

After the property owner made several compromises at the suggestion of Commissioner Jean Reed,  she (Reed) still voted against the proposed project which could create over 350 jobs and result in 35 million dollars in construction costs.  Last year Reed voted against Mims proposal on a separate tract that will create industrial jobs.

Opponents argued that the use was not compatible, even though a C&D landfill and even more onerous uses are allowed under the PM land use designation.  Even more compelling is the adjacent uses which are non-residential, including the gypsum stacks, the Mosaic facility, the recent mining in the area and the industrial tract (with railheads) lying directly east of the property.

The Florida Department of Community Affairs had no major objections to the project which is rarely the case.  Ironically, the same board voted 5-0 in favor of a large Mosaic project that DCA raised substantial concerns about.

For more information about IEP, go to:  www.iepgreen.com

Here’s an excerpt from a great article:  

“In 2000, the plaintiffs won $145 billion — that’s a b for billion — in what was the largest punitive damage award by a jury in U.S. history. An appeals court later overturned the verdict, and the Florida Supreme Court refused to reinstate it. But the Supreme Court left in place some critical legal changes in the tobacco wars.

First, the court permitted each of the Engle class’ members, known as the “Engle progeny,” to file lawsuits individually. Hence the 9,000-plus lawsuits awaiting their chance in Florida courts.

Second, the court said the Engle jury’s findings on cigarettes, their health effects and the companies’ conduct over the years had to be accepted in future tobacco cases.

That means smokers do not have to prove that cigarettes are harmful every single time they bring suit. It is already a given, the court stated, much to the tobacco industry’s dismay.

In federal cases, tobacco lawyers have appealed arguing these court instructions are unfair. They await a ruling on 4,400 federal cases, part of those 9,000-plus to be tried in Florida alone. But in Florida state courts, the state Supreme Court’s instructions are helping to generate verdicts at a breakneck pace.

What plaintiff lawyers have to prove in such cases is that the smoker (who may or may not be alive) was addicted and smoked a particular brand of cigarette.

In many cases, the verdicts are coming in with the juries assigning a percentage of responsibility to the smoker and the tobacco companies. Cigarette lawyers point to these split verdicts as evidence that these Florida cases are not clear-cut signs that the tobacco industry is losing.

Even so, that’s still left plenty for tobacco companies to pay.”

To read the entire article, go to the following link:

http://smoking-quit.info/florida-emerges-as-center-of-tobacco-litigation-universe