Pay Dirt
Making money from humus (which is not the stuff you eat with a pita).

I knew I shouldn't have buried that fish. But at the time, it seemed like a good idea.
I had just emptied out a 17-gallon plastic container, punched holes through the bottom for drainage and filled it with the soil from all my dead houseplants. In less than an hour, I had a compost bin -- my first one ever, and my small contribution to the betterment of Mother Earth.

Now the hungry microorganisms inside those grains of dirt just needed something to munch on. I threw in raked leaves from my yard, a few twigs and some rotting broccoli from my fridge. Then, I remembered the whole tilapia in my freezer.

I don't remember where the idea came from -- maybe an old hippie friend or Last of the Mohicans -- but I took that tilapia and buried it in the middle of my compost bin. But now -- as I stare at the bugs and flies and smell a very unearthly stench --I'm starting to think it wasn't the best idea.

Lynn Barber agrees.

"We don't really recommend that," says Barber, who teaches a public composting class as part of a Hillsborough County Extension Office program. "You're going to draw any type of animal to that heap."

Two weeks ago, I was compost-challenged; I didn't know the difference between humus and hummus. So when I agreed to meet Pete Nelson, president of Mother's Organics Humus Farm -- a large-scale composting operation for yard debris -- I looked forward to free samples of garlicky hummus and pita chips. Good thing Nelson told me the difference before I showed up.

From County Road 579, Mother's Organic Humus Farm doesn't appear to be a farm or a composting operation. The façade -- made up of a small rock waterfall, a large painting of "Mother Earth" and landscaped trees and shrubs -- could be mistaken for the entrance to a subdivision. Only when you've passed through the front gate does the entire 60-acre site come into view: an old house, administrative building, large parking lot and a huge scar in the earth called a borrow pit, where truckload after truckload of fill dirt was excavated over the years and shipped off to feed Florida's ever-hungry road and construction project industry. Mother's Organics not only recycles yard waste into nutrient-humus, the site itself has been turned from a borrow pit into a farm.

Nelson and two consulting engineers, Jim Sharkin of Creative Environmental Solutions and Mark Lafon of Living Soil Solutions, greet me for a tour of the property.

"There's very few uses for these properties when they're played out," says Nelson as he leads me to the edge of a 40-foot drop where tree trimmers unload their trucks. "But for what we're doing, it's a perfect opportunity."

The business plan is simple: Private companies drop off tree limbs, leaves and stumps for a fee based on the volume of debris. The organic matter is ground and formed into piles to allow the composting process to begin. At the end of several months, the matter is reduced to a compact, nutrient-rich soil, or "humus," that farmers or residential gardeners can purchase.

Mother's Organics does not take any other organic waste, such as manure, which is why the only odor is the sweet smell of freshly-clipped grass and pulped wood.

"If you think this is an organic dumping ground or a yard waste processing plant, it's not," Nelson says as company trucks empty limbs, leaves and stumps. "It's a humus farm. It's entirely different than anything that's been done around here."

Two years ago, Pete Nelson didn't know the difference between humus and hummus, either. The Manhattan-born 34-year-old was working as a corporate banker for SunTrust when he came across Bill Stanton, who had bought the old Malone Borrow Pit in 1999. Stanton, who has worked for various salvage and landfill industries, longed for a large-scale composting facility that would divert yard waste from landfills to be recycled into humus.

"Here in the U.S. we are many, many years behind a lot of simple land practices," Stanton says by phone. "There is not a symbiotic relationship between the cities and the farmlands. Or the land, period."

The project hasn't been without setbacks or detractors.

Since Stanton bought the borrow pit, residents of Seffner and neighboring Thonotosassa have expressed concern about companies filling in borrow pits. Because Mother's Organic is located within a 5-mile radius of the Taylor Road Landfill, a polluted EPA Superfund site, Hillsborough County has imposed strict regulations on the site. In fact, last month, county environmental officials slapped Mother's Organic with a $19,000 fine for not obtaining a permit from their office before they accepted yard waste.

"I am very much concerned," says Cam Oberting, a vocal activist who lives down the road from the site. "I'm going to take a wait-and-see attitude."

Nelson understands neighbors' trepidation.

"If I was a resident of Thonotosassa, I'd be suspicious, too," he says. "I think [residents] were weary, because there has been so much irresponsible use of borrow pits."
To alleviate some fears, Nelson says he's adopted an open-door policy, allowing residents to tour the land any time. He points out the design of the site minimizes dust and odors, and all water run-off ends up in two retention ponds on the property. Nelson says any water needed for composting will be pumped from those bodies of water. Engineers have determined a 15-foot layer of clay covers the entire site, assuring no water will leach into the aquifer. And nearly everything at Mother's Organics is made from recycled materials: the asphalt, administration building, guard rails. They even recycled an old Busch Gardens open-air trolley to give tours of the property.

"It's part of practicing what you preach," Nelson says.

There's little brush in the pit now; it could take six to nine months before their humus is ready to be used. But once the process starts, Nelson says, the possibilities are endless.
"I'd like to see them come out here and take compost tea [a nutrient-rich liquid form of compost] and spread it on a lawn instead of a fertilizer," he says. "We have a full range of products we can make out of this. There's an incredible opportunity to process this material to go back and actually improve the environment. Literally, if done the right way, it can have a measurable impact on our community."

Just as long as you leave the fish out of it.

For more information on Mother's Organics Humus Farm visit mothersorganics.com. To sign up for Hillsborough County's composting class, call 813-744-5519, ext. 105. Pinellas County residents can call 727-298-3215, ext. 24.

Creative Loafing | Published on February 6, 2008
By Alex Pickett