Miami-Dade County has selected as one of three possible locations for a new incinerator the 416-acre county-owned former Opa-locka West Airport site. PHOTO COURTESY OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT.

Seventy-one years ago, the story goes, developer Abraham (A.L.) Mailman bought land on the western edge of Broward County on which to build affordable houses for working people. He constructed 56 low-cost houses on his property which he named Miramar after an area in Havana, Cuba, where he owned a summer home.

Miramar was incorporated two years later, on May 26, 1955, and, over the next seven decades, has grown into a thriving 315-square-mile city, with a population of around

135,000, a median household income of around $82,000, a per capita income of $35,321 and a poverty rate of about eight percent.

But, if next-door Miami-Dade County has its way, Miramar, whose motto is “Beauty and Progress,” would be looking not to the sea, as its name means, but to a gigantic waste dis- posal facility that would have nothing to do with its residents’ waste.

That is because Miami-Dade Count has selected as one of three possible location for a new incinerator the 416acre county-owned former Opa-locka West Airport site.

The other two are the town of Medley and the city of Doral, both of which, like Miramar, oppose having the “burn facility” in their midst. Miami-Dade officials are expected to decide on the site shortly and there is every likelihood that Opa-locka could be given the nod because of the availability of the land in an area not as populated as Medley or Doral.

Doral is arguing that it has already hosted an incinerator for more than 40 years, starting when it was home to much fewer residents, and, because of its explosive growth over the years, another site should be chosen. Coincidentally, the Doral incinerator was destroyed in February by a fire which burned for three weeks, shifting Miami-Dade’s trash disposal problem from serious to critical.

According to news reports, especially in The Miami Herald, the county was already facing a desperate situation getting rid of its waste before the loss of the Doral facility. It was running out of space to dump or burn trash and household waste and was resorting to what The Herald deemed a solution that was “short-term for a long-term problem.” Since September 2021, Miami-Dade was sending about 15,000 tons of garbage monthly from a holding station off Northwest 12th Avenue and 20th Street to a 970-acre landfill operated by Waste Management in Okeechobee County more than 100 miles north.

With the destruction of the Doral facility, the county has been sending waste to two existing landfills in North Miami-Dade and South MiamiDade but they are expected to reach capacity by 2026 and 2030, respectively. As a result, the county is planning to increase the North Dade site from its current maximum permitted height of 135 feet. That could provide 30 more years of use and more than $400 million in anticipated revenues. However, that location accepts only yard waste and trash such as tree trimmings.

To make matters worse, the county has also faced difficulties with disposing of recyclable waste. It contracted in 2008 with Waste Management to send the contents of curbside recycling bins from 350,000 homes to the company’s plant in Broward County. However, residents have not been recycling waste as much as expected and Waste Management declined to renew the contract.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that about 4.3 million tons of waste was collected in Mimi-Dade in 2020 but only 19 percent of it was recycled material. That was below the rates of other Florida counties with a million or more residents, including next-door Broward County with 30 percent.

According to current plans, MiamiDade will close the Doral incinerator permanently, instead of repairing it, rejecting a proposal by Covanta, the private company that was contracted to operate it. Covanta had suggested that about $35 million be spent from anticipated insurance money to pay for partial repairs, arguing that such a step would take the pressure off landfills, which have now become the only way of disposing of waste.

As far back as summer 2021 also, a consultant had recommended that a modern recycling plant be built next to then still active Doral facility and an operator be hired to run it. That proposal came up against the reality that residents were not recycling in as large numbers to make it feasible.

Mayor Danielle Levin Cava was expecting a preliminary analysis of the three sites that would include feedback from regulators on permitting for each as a “waste-to-energy” facility, along with who will be affected.

In a February memo to commissioners, the mayor recommended that the county build its own recycling facility alongside a new modern incinerator which would allow the recycling plant to operate on electricity generated by the incinerator, The Herald reported. “With its own plant, Miami-Dade could design a process that accepts more materials than the Waste Management facility, where plastic silverware is currently considered contamination,” The Herald reported. “It also would end Miami-Dade’s reliance on private-sector recycling options at a time when Waste Management and a former

Broward County competitor, Bergeron Environmental and Recycling, are in a court fight over alleged anti-competitive practices.”

The new incinerator will be a wasteto-energy plant using mass burn technology, instead of the refuse-derived fuel facility which was used at the Doral site and which processed more than a million tons of waste annually, Waste Today reported.

The county’s plans include using up to $200 million in insurance money, along with funds from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act by way of tax credits of around 30 percent of the cost, Waste Today reported. Construction should begin around Jan. 1, 2025.

That should all be a matter for Miami-Dade County, if it were not the possibility that the new plant could be constructed a mile or so from Miramar. For one thing, unlike for Medley and Doral, Miramar residents, who live in Broward County, will not be able to vote on the issue. Also, Miramar officials appear convinced that the incinerator will have an adverse health impact. The city has launched a petition drive, which ends on April 13, against the Opa-locka site, pointing to possible health hazards. The petition had garnered about 6,000 signatures at the time of writing. [Full disclosure: This writer, a Miramar resident, is among the signatories,]

The city’s website lists the potential hazards as “harmful chemicals and pollutants” which “are generated by waste incinerations.” Those include: “Particulate matter leading to lung and heart diseases;” “Heavy metals like lead and mercury causing neurological diseases;” and “toxic chemicals … associated with cancer and other health issues.”

Miramar Mayor Wayne Messam warned the Miami-Dade County Commission that his city is gearing up for a fight, stating: “Because our backs are against the wall, we have no choice but to protect the interests of our residents. Miramar doesn’t want to be in this adversarial position. But we have no choice.”

The Miami-Dade County Commission will obviously also have to take into consideration the issue of environmental racism, which relates to a history in that county and elsewhere in the nation, of locating hazardous operations in majority African American communities. If the dispute comes to a showdown, it is very likely that Miramar will point out that 46 percent of residents are African Americans, with European Americans at 30 percent. Also, African Americans hardly show up in the demographics of Medley and Doral. That could be a powerful argument when it comes to obtaining at least federal and, perhaps, state permits for the proposed new incinerator.