Donald Trump’s win may sink Miami-Dade County’s quest for a modern trash incinerator

Donald Trump’s second presidential win may have blown up Miami-Dade County’s quest to build a modern incinerator.

On Tuesday, the day when county commissioners were set to vote on Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s recommendation to build a trash-burning facility in Doral, the board instead voted to delay a decision until February so that other options could be studied.

Trump’s name was never mentioned. But the change in plans came days after Eric Trump, son of the president-elect, held a round of calls and meetings with Levine Cava, a Democrat, and Republican commissioners, objecting to the county building an incinerator in Doral, home to a Trump golf resort.

“Obviously, there have been folks at the national level who brought some attention to the matter,” Jimmy Morales, a top Levine Cava deputy, told commissioners ahead of the deferral vote. “I think, in response to some of the concerns raised there, to make sure that we have some clear answers about any impacts on nearby facilities that hadn’t been discussed before.”

READ MORE: Doral incinerator fire dilemmas: Where to dump Miami-Dade’s trash; where to rebuild?

While Levine Cava has warned commissioners throughout 2024 that a new incinerator is vital to Miami-Dade’s long-term finances and growth plans, the mayor on Tuesday raised the possibility of not building a new incinerator at all. Instead, the county is exploring whether future trash needs can be handled by permanently relying on landfills for burying waste. The county generates about 5 million tons of trash, lawn clippings, construction debris and other sources of waste a year.

With the county’s two landfills almost full, that option would have Miami-Dade relying permanently on landfills outside of Miami-Dade — and potentially outside of Florida, too. Levine Cava said the new focus on an incinerator alternative came not from the Trump family pushback but from a recent meeting with the Sierra Club and other environmental groups.

“We met with a group of environmentalists who expressed a strong preference to do landfill,” Levine Cava said after the vote. “Our previous due diligence had suggested that landfill was less environmentally appropriate. And obviously we also would have to get the trash to that facility, and that’s another aspect of it. But based on their advocacy, we thought it was appropriate to take some additional time to consider it.”

Levine Cava said all incinerator options remain on the table, including the possibility of building a replacement in Doral. But ahead of a planned meeting sometime in February to make a final decision on building an incinerator, Levine Cava said the administration will be exploring a landfill option that could mean Miami-Dade wouldn’t need a new incinerator at all.

Morales, chief operations officer under Levine Cava, told commissioners the administration remains in a research mode for shifting to landfills over a new incinerator. “It doesn’t mean that staff or the administration necessarily agrees with it, but there are folks out there advocating for it,” he said. “The mayor and others felt we need to make sure we have good answers.”

Miami-Dade is already relying on landfills to dispose of the roughly 1 million tons of garbage the county’s existing incinerator in Doral was burning each year until a 2023 fire shut down the facility. The calamity gave Doral the chance to push for Miami-Dade to build a replacement elsewhere, an option Levine Cava initially backed. Her administration last year recommended an abandoned county airfield in northern Miami-Dade, but that came under fire from nearby Miramar in Broward County.

Last month, Levine Cava reversed course and said the airfield option was too expensive for Miami-Dade, as were other alternative incinerator sites. She recommended commissioners vote to build a modern incinerator in Doral, with the kind of clean-burning technology that would eliminate the gripes about foul odors that are a chief complaint from neighbors of the existing facility.

The intervention of the Trump Organization weeks after Trump’s win scrambled that recommendation. Republicans hold six of the 13 seats on the board, and backers of the Doral plan were counting on a bipartisan coalition to vote for building a new incinerator there. For that to happen, multiple Republican commissioners would need to buck the president-elect’s family, which had been silent on the controversy during the county’s prior debates.

The Trump National Doral Miami, which sits 3 miles from the incinerator site, is awaiting final approval from the city of Doral for a new condo and retail complex on the golf resort.

Christi Fraga, Doral’s mayor, called off a plan to bus city residents to County Hall on Tuesday after Levine Cava and commissioners said last week they planned to defer the incinerator vote.

“We are in communication with the right people to make sure that solutions are brought to the table,” said Fraga, who called on the Trump Organization to intervene in the debate.

County Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez, a Republican who represents Doral and had lunch with Eric Trump last week, said he welcomed the new talk of alternatives to incinerators.

“I am very heartened and very happy to see that we will have an opportunity to … have an open and frank discussion about everything,” said Bermudez, a longtime opponent of building the incinerator in Doral.

But the shift rankled other commissioners, who warned that abandoning the Doral incinerator site will lead to hundreds of millions more in trash-processing costs that eventually will get paid by residents through trash fees.

“They’re going to have to pay more if we move it anywhere but Doral,” said Commissioner Oliver Gilbert, a Democrat. “We can make the decision to move it. I’m OK with that, if you’re OK with explaining to your residents why they have to pay more.”

This story was originally published December 3, 2024 at 6:04 PM.