Technology long touted by a Central Florida company as able to affordably clean up pollution in rivers and lakes may not be very affordable, according to developments this week.
AquaFiber Technologies Corp. in Winter Park has tantalized state officials for having developed a potentially game-changing cure for polluted waters such as Lake Apopka and the St. Johns River.
But when the company went to the St. Johns River Water Management District on Wednesday to nail down a multi-year deal, the response it got was an offer to further evaluate a possible agreement that wouldn’t cost the agency as much.
Hearing that, the company’s president, Kirby Green, who is a former director of the water district, said the deal was off. He could not be reached for comment afterward.
AquaFiber’s apparent withdrawal leaves the state with a challenge it has always faced; Dealing with water pollution will be a grinding, expensive and long-lasting job.
The state has 21 formal clean-up plans for rivers, lakes and coastal waters. Within those plans are more than 3,400 projects that have a combined – but not complete – price tag of nearly $2 billion, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
One of those plans is for Lake Jesup, which branches off from the St. Johns River in Seminole County.
It is one of Central Florida’s largest lakes and receives polluted runoff from Seminole and Orange counties, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Eatonville, Lake Mary, Longwood, Maitland, Orlando, Oviedo, Sanford and Winter Park.
In 2009, AquaFiber started up a demonstration of its secret technology at Lake Jesup and by this year had removed nearly 6,900 pounds of phosphorus pollution, which stimulates the growth of harmful algae.
The pilot project cost the water district $1.6 million, or $277 per pound of pollution taken out of Lake Jesup.
In considering further investment in AquaFiber’s approach, the district requested bids from other companies. Of five bids received, only the one from AquaFiber qualified for final consideration.
But the company’s offer to remove pollution for $1,000 per pound is too costly, according to recent analysis by the water district’s staff, which said AquaFiber would be billing the district $22 million to remove 22,000 pounds of pollution.
Robert Christianson, a senior executive at the district, said other pollution-removing approaches undertaken by the district – including the construction of marshes – have potential to be significantly less costly than AquaFiber’s approach.
John Miklos, the district’s chairman, said cleaning up Florida water is far from simple and he hoped AquaFiber would remain an option.
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