By David L Snelling
Miami – After a proposal with options for a new trash and energy incinerator in Doral or at the now defunct Opa-locka Airport West, Miami-Dade County is now exploring landfills for 1.7 million tons of trash a year.
Miami-Dade Mayor Danielle Levine Cava backed off her previous proposal to rebuild the plant in Doral whose incinerator was engulfed in flames in 2023.
This after President Donald Trump’s son, Eric Trump, vowed to fight it to keep it out of the city, according to the Miami Herald.
Eric Trump called Levine Cava and said he might drag his father into the incinerator fray if the county decides to keep it in Doral.
Before it burned down, the incinerator was operating about less than a mile from Trump Organization development projects and Trump National Doral Resort.
Doral recently approved another development project by the Trump Organization to build 1,500 condo units near the incinerator, and residents want it relocated claiming it causes health issues.
After a Jan. 28 workshop, the county is now leaning toward landfills, with options to increase capacity at MiamiDade-owned properties, purchasing property to erect a landfill or contracting private landfills.
The solid waste department handles trash pickup and recycling for more than 350,000 homes in Miami-Dade.
Levine Cava said building a new incinerator, which was estimated at $1.6 billion, is too costly for taxpayers, and using landfills cost way less.
“It’s critical not to burden taxpayers with too many families struggling with rising costs,” Cava said at the meeting. “Through fact-finding and due diligence, building an incinerator is safe to people and the environment but building it is extremely high.”
Cava also said building an incinerator at the previously recommended sites may draw legal challenges, prolonging the timeline to build it and adding more costs to Miami-Dade.
“I recommend long hauling to landfills with trucks,” Cava said. “Landfills are safe in the surrounding communities. Throughout the entire process, I have learned it’s not an easy way when it comes to waste management.”
But after a report on the costs for landfills by Miami-Dade Solid Waste Director Aneisha Daniel, commissioners learned the department’s figures presented at the meeting were higher than the rate they approved in September.
County Commissioner Oliver Gilbert said he was concerned when Daniel said the 5 percent rate increase for residents was only for trash collection.
Commissioners thought they had voted to raise solid waste fees for trash collection and disposal and recycling to generate money for a new incinerator and operating costs while seeking additional funding from grants and investors.
Gilbert said the understanding was using landfills or building a new incinerator, the rate commissioners approved, would run the system without residents facing additional fees over the years.
“The recommended fee for this year, that doesn’t pay for the system,” Gilbert said. “The assumption is that’s bad government … it costs this much to pick up garbage and disposal. My recommendation is to bring back a rate on how the fees will run the system, so the county won’t raise fees when the costs of services are going up.”
Commission Vice Chair Kionne McGhee said he was blindsided by the new figures, which he would’ve voted down last year.
“Your comments today are totally different than what we heard last year when we took a difficult vote looking at solid waste and disposal,” he said. “To me and my colleagues, we were misled on the fee increase, that it’s just for collection. And that’s a hard pill to swallow.”
County Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez, who represents Doral and lobbied his colleagues not to rebuild the incinerator in the city, agreed.
“Had I seen that chart yesterday or back in September, definitely I would have had a different point of view and a different decision on that day,” he said.
The county has been struggling to find suitable locations for building a new incinerator in the next seven to 10 years without impacting the environment and the health of residents, but ran into several roadblocks from the cities of Miramar and Doral and environmentalists.
Miramar residents protested the old airport site which is less than a mile from their neighborhood and near the Urban Development Boundary. Doral threatened legal action against the county but did offer to pay about $20 million over 20 years to relocate the incinerator.
In the meantime, the county has been hauling about 10 tons of trash a day to other solid waste sites outside the county, and county landfills in Northwest Miami-Dade and Southwest Miami-Dade which are nearly filled to capacity.
But Daniel said time is of the essence for the county to make a decision soon on solid waste.
She said the county needs to address several solid waste challenges with a strategic plan to reduce waste at the landfills.
Some of the challenges include an increase in waste as the county has seen an additional five million tons a year, more than the national average.
The loss of the Doral facility which burned one million tons in a faster time frame also had an impact. Solid waste now is being diverted to landfills, moving up deadlines and driving up costs.
In addition, the county’s landfill in Southwest Miami-Dade and Northwest Miami-Dade are projected to reach capacity in the next five years.
“We’re looking at long term solid waste solutions,” she said. “We need to act now because of timeline pressure including concurrency requirements, insurance proceeds and landfills reaching capacity. These are some of our timeline pressures that we are dealing with today.”
One of the options for relieving the capacity crunch is building a 1,000acre landfill in Central Florida, which will cost the county an estimated $556 million to burn 3.3 million tons of trash.
The estimated purchase price would be less compared to property values in Miami-Dade, and the operating costs are estimated at $163 million a year.
Continuing to contract with private landfills is another option.
But some commissioners said Levine Cava and the solid waste management have yet to present a concrete plan since the fire destroyed the incinerator in 2023.
The mayor’s back-and-forth proposals on an incinerator and landfills, with studies from environmental and financial experts, are complicating matters and delaying a decision.
“Today’s recommendation is for landfills … Yesterday it was an incinerator,” said Commissioner Eileen Higgins. “I’m waking up to a different plan on a different day.”
Higgins said trucks hauling tons of trash daily to landfills will impact the environment while Miami-Dade has launched several emission gas programs to reduce toxic chemicals.
Higgins also questioned whether building a landfill or contracting private dumps are less costly in the long run than building an incinerator.
She maintains her stance to rebuild the plant in Doral, which is less costly for taxpayers for years to come.
Higgins said cities in her district including Miami and Miami Beach are already facing a high rate of solid waste fees, and using landfills would drive up costs that they may have to pass on to residents.
“We’re looking at an additional $40 million over the years,” she said. “I can’t support raising taxes and fees on residents. There are alternatives that are better for the environment and the pocketbooks for residents.”
The workshop was a prelude to commissioners’ final vote in February on their plans for handling solid waste.
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