Huge Waste Burner Plan Defeated in FL?

The con­tro­ver­sial 41-year old Cov­an­ta Dade trash incin­er­a­tor in Doral, Flori­da burned down in a mas­sive 3‑week long fire in Feb­ru­ary 2023. Ever since, Mia­mi-Dade Coun­ty has been hell-bent on build­ing the nation’s largest waste incin­er­a­tor to replace it. This 4,000 ton/day burn­er would have been locat­ed in one of four com­mu­ni­ties of col­or in the coun­ty, either in/near the Latine City of Doral, or on the bor­der of the pre­dom­i­nant­ly Latine and Black City of Miramar.

Both Cities are VERY Opposed…

and we sup­port­ed the ear­ly oppo­si­tion from Broward Clean Air, and lat­er the “Don’t Incin­er­ate, Inno­vate” move­ment dri­ven by Mia­mi Sier­ra Club. Some cities passed res­o­lu­tions against any new incin­er­a­tor, but the coun­ty offi­cials pushed relent­less­ly for incin­er­a­tion, insult­ing envi­ron­men­tal­ists as unin­formed, as the coun­ty spewed indus­try mis­in­for­ma­tion they gath­ered on their world tour of trash burners.

Mayor Levine Cava “called a meeting”

Fol­low­ing a press con­fer­ence and ral­ly where we all spoke up in front of the coun­ty build­ing on 11/23/2024, the coun­ty May­or Levine Cava called a meet­ing with many envi­ron­men­tal groups two days lat­er, where they still dou­bled down on push­ing a new incin­er­a­tor. We took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to share with them the exten­sive life cycle assess­ment from Delaware Coun­ty, PA demon­strat­ing in detail how incin­er­a­tion is more than twice as harm­ful than landfilling.

After mul­ti­ple delayed Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­er deci­sions on where the incin­er­a­tor would go, and whiplash on which com­mu­ni­ty would be picked, it did­n’t hurt that Eric Trump came out opposed to the incin­er­a­tor being locat­ed close to a Trump resort and golf course in Doral, fur­ther derail­ing the sit­ing decision.

Miramar Releases Reports

On 1/25/2025, the City of Mira­mar released three reports they com­mis­sioned us to write, along with a detailed let­ter and appen­dices push­ing back on claims that incin­er­a­tors destroy PFAS “for­ev­er chem­i­cals” in the waste stream. Our reports doc­u­ment the best land­fills to use through­out the region, show that a “mod­ern” new trash incin­er­a­tor would still be one of the largest indus­tri­al air pol­luters in the coun­ty, and show that the newest incin­er­a­tor in the nation (in West Palm Beach) has over 170 mishaps and vio­la­tions in their first decade of operation.

The same day, Mia­mi-Dade Coun­ty May­or Levine Cava released a memo “rec­om­mend­ing that we con­tin­ue to long haul waste via truck and rail using our con­tract­ed capac­i­ty.” The memo still lists build­ing a new incin­er­a­tor as one of three items under “Path For­ward: Options to Consider.” 

The Tide Has Turned!

How­ev­er, it acknowl­edges the incred­i­ble expense and the polit­i­cal chal­lenges, includ­ing the like­li­hood of lit­i­ga­tion tying up such an effort for years. After such an aggres­sive push for a new incin­er­a­tor, it’s a slow process for the coun­ty admin­is­tra­tion to save face and turn that ship around, but this memo is a strong sign that the tide has turned.

Read more about our work in Flori­da at www.energyjustice.net/fl