Miramar is a metropolis of over 140,000 various residents. It’s centrally situated between Broward and Miami-Dade counties within the coronary heart of South Florida. It is usually lower than an eighth of a mile from the proposed location of a brand new Miami-Dade County waste-burning incinerator.
Just lately, Miami-Dade Mayor Danielle Levine Cava beneficial the Opa-Locka West Airport because the prime location for a brand new mass waste-burning incinerator facility. This suggestion is thoughtless and reprehensible, provided that the incinerator has the potential to emit 4,000 tons per day of dangerous emissions into the air and probably surrounding the town’s ingesting water provide.
As well as, the beneficial website can be situated a stone’s throw away from the Florida Everglades, risking hurt to a few of the state’s most valuable wildlife and over 90 endangered species because of wind emissions.
Kerri-Ann Nesbeth, candidate for Metropolis of Miramar Fee Seat 4, speaks on the Miami-Dade County Fee assembly, voicing sturdy opposition to constructing a trash incinerator close to the town.
This isn’t solely an environmental battle but additionally a civil rights infraction. An incinerator exterior the boundaries of Miramar poses a danger to the town’s various inhabitants. Miramar has over 45% Black/African American residents, over 35% Hispanic/Latino residents, and lots of different residents from various backgrounds. We’ve seen how comparable situations of mandated infrastructures have led to property and concrete decay.
Take, for instance, the 1956 freeway invoice, the place the growth of I-95 destroyed over 80 acres of housing and property in Miami’s principally black Overtown neighborhood, forcing residents into sections of the town that had been already dealing with financial disparities. Extra notably, “Previous Smokey,” inbuilt 1926, left embers, soot, and ash over the neighborhood of West Grove. Members of the neighborhood are nonetheless reeling from the results of the mass burn website with famous illnesses like most cancers and pulmonary illness. Incinerators are traditionally identified to launch dangerous air pollution, together with nitrogen oxides, sulfur lead, mercury, dioxins, and furans, linked to cardiac illness and reproductive, developmental, and neurological issues.
Emissions from the proposed website additionally create monetary dangers for Miramar, as the town serves as headquarters for a number of small, medium, and large-sized companies. A dangerous incinerator might drive enterprise away from these house owners, and subsequently, house owners may select to relocate their firms, impacting income for the town, which is used to assist quite a few assist packages for residents.
However there’s a resolution that brings frequent floor to all events concerned, one which strikes the trash incinerator away from residents of Miramar and people in Miami-Dade and locations it the place the social and environmental results can stay minimal. Lowell Dunn II, the CEO of D3 Power, has invited the trash incinerator to be constructed on the location that has already been accredited in Medley. He has even provided a smart buying deal to the county, the place the income of the proposed deal would go to charitable efforts.
The residents of Miramar shouldn’t be impacted by the inefficient proposal of a trash incinerator of their yard that emits poisonous emissions, creating social, civil, and environmental injustice.
The Miami-Dade County Fee should make the proper resolution, mitigate the environmental and well being considerations of Miramar residents, and people of surrounding cities, and discover a new website or a greater resolution to their waste drawback.
To enroll to attend the November 6 Miami-Dade County Fee assembly to make your voice heard and keep abreast of future updates, navigate to https://www.miramarfl.gov/2266/Mass-Burn-Facility.