Dive Temporary:
- The mayor of Miami-Dade County, Florida, is backing away from a proposal to construct a brand new waste-to-energy facility. As a substitute, her workplace is advocating for constructing a brand new landfill or contracting new landfill capability.
- County officers have spent almost two years debating the placement of a brand new incinerator to switch one that burned down in Doral on Feb. 12, 2023. However opposition from native officers close to a number of proposed websites has difficult the talk.
- In a memo to county commissioners, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s workplace mentioned the county might construct a brand new landfill for $556 million with annual working prices of $163 million as a long-term answer for disposal capability. The county board is scheduled to debate the problem Tuesday.
Dive Perception:
County officers have repeatedly delayed a call on a location for a brand new waste-to-energy facility, regardless of initially planning to construct a brand new one on the web site of the now-decommissioned Doral facility.
However Levine Cava’s workplace determined in a memo despatched on Saturday that “the prices of constructing and sustaining a brand new [WTE] facility are extraordinarily excessive, and any web site chosen would seemingly generate authorized and different challenges that might considerably prolong the mission timeline.” Because of this, it’s now urging the board of county commissioners to desert plans for a brand new waste-to-energy facility.
Whereas the talk over a brand new WTE facility continues, the county has relied on sending extra of its waste to landfills to satisfy its disposal wants. The county division of stable waste administration handles about 2.4 million tons of waste yearly, in response to the mayor’s workplace. The Doral useful resource restoration facility dealt with almost half of all of the waste dealt with by DSWM previous to its destruction.
In September, the mayor’s workplace disclosed up to date agreements with WM and Waste Connections for using their landfills. Whereas WM had supplied Miami-Dade County with 1.25 million tons of annual capability throughout three Florida landfills in a 2015 settlement, it greater than doubled that capability to 2.7 million tons yearly by way of Sept. 30, 2035, per a current memo. The county additionally upped its capability with Waste Connections to 800,000 tons per yr, including 300,000 tons of annual capability with the corporate.
Over the previous two years, the county has been piloting rail switch and utilizing long-haul trucking to switch its waste to the personal landfills. The county additionally owns and makes use of the North Dade Landfill and South Dade Landfill, although the 2 services are estimated to have 5 and 4 years of capability left, respectively.
The mayor’s newest missive estimates that constructing a brand new WTE facility in Doral would require $1.5 billion in capital prices and $59.3 million in annual operations and upkeep prices. It tasks a facility in such a location could be the most affordable and quickest to construct of all accessible websites for waste-to-energy.
However that potential siting selection has garnered sturdy opposition from native politicians and even the Trump household, which owns a resort and golf course in Doral. On the similar time, officers representing neighboring Broward County and town of Miramar have threatened authorized challenges in opposition to a different proposed web site on a former airport, which was an choice that the mayor’s workplace had beforehand advisable.
The board is scheduled to carry a particular assembly Tuesday devoted to discussing stable waste points. Commissioners additionally mentioned they might make a remaining resolution on a web site for a brand new WTE facility by their common February assembly.