The rural outskirts of Arcadia in DeSoto County is quintessential old Florida. It's about an hour's drive inland from the congested coast. Here there are vast expanses of land dotted with orange groves and cattle.
Tucked far away from these roads, under giant tree canopies, are the homes of people who know these parts intimately. People like Molly Bowen.
Bowen reaches up to a towering magnolia tree and plucks a fresh bloom, handing it to me.
I'm struck by the sheer size of the flower and instinctively curl my hand into a ball and compare the two.
The flower wins.
We take a seat in the shade of a tree. Somewhere I can't quite pinpoint, the wind gets lyrical as it dances with some metal chimes.
Between the size and smell of the magnolia bloom, the wind chimes and a distant rooster's call, it's all very intoxicating.
Bowen explains that it's moments like these that drew her here full time from Sarasota in the early '90s. Here she raised six children. Here she fought on their behalf.
And now she fights not only for them, but her 11 grandchildren.
"And it was like a wonderland. My children were the perfect ages for playing and exploring and when they got a little older, I would send them to the creek with my dog and they'd pack a lunch and they'd be gone."
But then things changed when landowners started accepting biosolids from throughout Florida and spreading the sludge on the vast agricultural land in the late '90s.
The biosolids were the remains of treated human sewage.
Fear that biosolids could leach into the water supply were rampant; so was sickness. Bowen said one of her daughters scratched herself while in the creek and ended up at a hospital with a Staph infection.
"That's when I said, 'No more. You can't go anymore.' And it's, it almost like ruined their childhood, because they loved it so much."
The Sarasota Herald Tribune reported how several hundred schoolchildren were sick, believed to be from the biosolids. The elderly and those with asthma were having difficulties, reports said.
In addition to journalists, scientists and Earth Justice lawyers flooded the county and government meetings. And DeSoto County got painted with the dubious name of Sludge Capital of Florida.
Bowen said none of the residents had any money to take the lead in fighting to stop the sludge deposits. So Earth Justice stepped in.
"And that is why they pretty much came to our rescue, because none of us had money for a lawyer, and I wouldn't stop," Bowen said. "I just kept on going and talking and doing. You know, it's because I moved here for the peace, the quiet, you know, the awesome smells, not crap smells."
Bowen was among a dozen plaintiffs in a case.
Over time, multiple violations were discovered including improper application techniques and inadequate safety precautions to restrict access. Many sites were within the watershed of the Peace River, a crucial drinking water source for people in Charlotte, DeSoto and Sarasota counties.
In response to the issues, county government took action when in early 2001 it adopted stricter standards than required by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
The legal action was dismissed with an undisclosed settlement, court records say. Bowen cannot talk about it, but one thing is clear, sludge was no longer being trucked in and spread out over fields.
Two decades later that may change.
The son of one of the original defendants, VC Hollingsworth, is asking the county commission for a special exemption to allow him to have biosolids hauled back to a portion of his family's property so that a company called Osceola Organics may convert the sludge into the grade of biosolids currently allowed under the county ordinance.
"We got to stop this. We can't go through this again. And hundreds of people in our neighborhood and in town agree with us. So, there's one of him or two, I guess, the owner, and against all of us," Bowen said.
Hollingsworth has received the blessing of the county's planning board. Now it will be up to the five-member county commission. Three votes are needed.
As we finish up our conversation, Bowen picks up the magnificent flower she handed me and says she's resolved to reignite the fight that began over two decades ago.
"This beautiful flower is from a giant magnolia tree, and just to smell it. It's like the freshness of the spring air with no smell of nasty sludge in the air," she said. "And we're going keep it that way. We are all together on this."
A public hearing on the matter is set for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in DeSoto County.
