The Florida Senate

403.7165  Applications Demonstration Center for Resource Recovery from Solid Organic Materials.--

(1)  The Applications Demonstration Center for Resource Recovery from Solid Organic Materials is hereby created, which shall be operated to demonstrate and evaluate advanced low-cost technologies for treatment of solid waste and improvement of water quality that were developed from research in the state for treating municipal solid waste and wastewater while producing methane gas and other beneficial products, which research was funded by the United States Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Gas Research Institute, United Gas Pipeline, Southern California Edison, and the State of Florida, and from similar research and development programs in this state and elsewhere directed toward developing resource recovery technologies applicable to brewery wastes, food-processing residues, municipal wastes, and other industrial organic wastes that threaten the quality of the environment in this state.

(2)  The demonstration center shall use existing wastewater treatment channels and test-beds with engineered anaerobic digester devices, sludge, organic municipal solid waste, energy crops, and associated lands in cooperation with Reedy Creek Energy Services, Inc., the manager of the land and treatment plant, and the Gas Research Institute, the owner of the anaerobic digestion system.

(3)  The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida shall operate the demonstration center in cooperation with Reedy Creek Energy Services, Inc.

(4)  The Florida Cooperative Extension Service shall conduct workshops at the Applications Demonstration Center for Resource Recovery from Solid Organic Materials to demonstrate applicable technologies to municipal, county, and industrial waste managers:

(a)  For reducing the potential for eutrophication in offsite water bodies and the adverse effects associated with conventional ways of treating solid organic wastes;

(b)  For using energy crops to extract nutrients from wastewater and sludges spread on land; and

(c)  For producing methane gas, compost, and other useful products in the process of managing wastes.

History.--s. 61, ch. 88-130; s. 13, ch. 91-113; s. 13, ch. 94-356; s. 14, ch. 2000-304.