A public notice issued October 9 by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) reveals that Charlotte County applied for a renewal of its air quality permit for the Zemel Road landfill — with outdated emissions testing data. 

 

The renewal application relies on testing conducted in 2017. Under federal rules, landfills must conduct new field sampling (known as Tier 2 testing) at least every five years. There's no public record of Tier 2 testing of the Zemel Road facility since 2017, yet Charlotte County used that 2017 data in its application for renewing its air quality permit for operating the facility.

 

The permit application stated that DEP would only hold a public meeting about the air permit renewal if “there is sufficient interest.” As of November 14, 2025, no such public meeting has been scheduled by DEP.

 

Testing conducted in 2017 projected that landfill emissions would peak at 24.2 metric tons per year through 2022. No updated emissions testing data have been made public since then. 

 

Under federal landfill regulations (40 CFR Part 60, Subpart WWW), DEP may accept older testing data as still valid only if site conditions have not significantly changed. However, this notion is questionable given the Zemel Road facility is Charlotte County's only landfill, and the county's population has increased approximately 23 percent since 2017, according to official estimates from the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research and the U.S. Census Bureau. 

 

Charlotte County is moving ahead with a vertical expansion of the landfill, raising the permitted height from 130 feet to 195 feet to extend capacity. 

 

Charlotte County did not respond to inquiries seeking confirmation of whether the required field sampling and recalculations have been conducted at the site and requesting provision of any resulting data.

 

The federal threshold that would trigger installation of a full-scale gas collection and control system to protect public health is 50 metric tons per year. By continuing to rely on the 2017 data, the county remains below that threshold and does not incur the significant costs such a system would entail.

 

The Zemel Road facility, located near the Charlotte-Lee County line south of Punta Gorda, is the county’s primary solid waste landfill. It has been operating since 1975 and has a total capacity for roughly 7.5 million metric tons of waste. 

 

The full draft permit and supporting documents are available athttp://www.dep.state.fl.us/air/emission/apds/default.asp by searching for permit number 0150075-017-AV.