Wood business stops work after complaints of ‘blowing smoke into the backyards of 1000s of neighbors’ in Palencia

PALENCIA, Fla. – A privately-owned wood processing and recycling business had to stop work after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from St. Johns County officials late Wednesday following several complaints from residents who said the smoke has impacted their ability to breathe freely.

According to the letter sent to Ancient City Wood Recycling by email Wednesday and through the mail Thursday morning, the company was burning outside of the hours of operations, among other violations.

People who live in the Palencia neighborhood, just minutes east of Ancient City, said that smoke would travel this way sometimes making it difficult to do simple activities.

“We’ll you always want to be able to breathe some fresh air when you’re playing, but when you smell that and you know that it’s smoke from something burning like that you just try to not breathe as deep and know that they’re going to hopefully get it stopped,” Palencia resident Kimberly Maxwell said.

Maxwell described what it was like playing tennis, when there’s heavy smoke in the air, just like it was recently in the Palencia neighborhood — smoke that is believed to be coming from Ancient City Wood Recycling.

A person in the area provided the following photo to News4JAX of how thick that smoke was a few weeks ago, as they were driving on U.S. 1, near Palencia.

The cease-and-desist letter indicates the county is investigating the company for unauthorized burning and production of smoke, and lists violations relating to the company’s special use permit:

• St. Johns County Fire and Rescue documents burning outside hours of operations

• St. Johns County Fire Rescue documents burning consecutive days when burning is “limited to one time per week”

So, how did the investigation into this recycling center start?

Based on a memo from the county, complaints of smoke came from people who live in Palencia. Plus, an email shared by a resident showed the Florida Department of Environmental Protection had been looking into complaints from Ancient City for weeks.

Watch aerials of Ancient City Wood Recycling captured by Sky4 in the video below:

Those complaints had one county commissioner upset at a recent meeting.

“I don’t know anybody who would be comfortable with their small business blowing smoke into the backyards of thousands of neighbors,” Christian Whitehurst said at the meeting.

Maxwell said she’s glad the county sent the company the cease-and-desist letter because it shows they care about the residents’ health and it’s made it easier to be active outside.

“It always speaks volumes to how people are handling certain situations,” Maxwell said.

The letter the county sent Ancient City also said they are still looking into which way the winds were blowing while the company was performing burns since their permit specifies winds should be from the East or the Northeast.

News4JAX reached out to Ancient City and at the time this story was published we had not heard back.