Martin’s wayward ash finally finds a home
By WILLIAM M. HARTNETT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
In the 16 years since it was produced in a Philadelphia garbage incinerator, a 2,200-ton load of ash that now sits in a barge south of Stuart has criss-crossed the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, accumulating an itinerary that reads like a traveler’s delight.
Turned away from Bermuda, the Dominican Republic and other tropical ports of call, and after being abandoned on a beach in Haiti for more than a decade, the ash found a temporary home on the Treasure Coast in April 2000.
There it has rested ever since, piled deep in an oceangoing hopper barge moored on the St. Lucie Canal.
But now, finally, the saga of the infamous and supposedly toxic ash that no one wanted in their back yard appears to be limping toward an elegant, symmetrical resolution.
Final destination: Pennsylvania.