Mayor: Not worth pursuing incinerator if commissioners won’t raise trash rates

Weeks after Miami-Dade commissioners rejected a $14 yearly increase in county garbage rates for 2027, the county mayor says it may be time to abandon a plan to spend $2 billion building a new trash incinerator.

If commissioners don’t ultimately approve a 2% rate increase to let the Solid Waste Department keep up with routine rising costs next year, there’s no reason for Miami-Dade to keep spending millions of dollars on consultants for a $2 billion replacement for the Doral incinerator shut down by a fire in 2022, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava wrote in a memo Friday. Miami-Dade has been planning to pay for the incinerator — also known as a “waste-to-energy” plant or WTE — through higher garbage rates that would be even pricier than the nominal increase Levine Cava proposed for 2027.

“The County cannot responsibly continue spending ratepayer dollars and staff resources to plan a WTE facility while rejecting the rate increases necessary to fund the system it would depend upon,” Levine Cava wrote. She wrote that the county has already spent more than $13 million on consultants in pursuit of a new incinerator.

On May 5, eight of the 13 commissioners voted against the proposed 2% increase in residential garbage rates — which would bring costs up to $716 for the typical household — for the budget year that begins Oct. 1. Voting against Levine Cava’s proposed 2027 garbage rates were Commission Chair Anthony Rodriguez and Commissioners Juan Carlos Bermudez, Danielle Cohen Higgins, René Garcia, Roberto Gonzalez, Vicki Lopez, Natalia Milian Orbis, and Raquel Regalado.

“We can’t keep throwing more taxpayer money at everything. We should at least ask: Can we do more with less?” Gonzalez said Monday on his vote against the rate increase. “I’m confident we can deliver better service without burdening taxpayers if we focus on it.”

While the administration has plenty of time for commissioners to change their minds on a modest increase in trash rates — particularly after they get past the August elections — Levine Cava’s memo suggested she has no plans to ask again.

She laid out $4.6 million worth of cuts planned for next year’s Solid Waste budget, including reducing spending on clean-up crews for roadside debris, litter pick-up and for enforcing county codes on clearing away trash from private property.

“These impacts will be implemented on October 1, 2026, and will affect Collection Fee funded services relied upon by residents and businesses,” she wrote.

The memo probably signals a warning shot in the extended budget fight that begins in mid-July when Levine Cava unveils her spending plan for 2027 — a budget recommendation that will include next year’s trash rates for the more than 350,000 households that rely on the county’s Solid Waste Department for garbage and recycling service.

After she and commissioners punted on most austerity measures floated during last year’s budget fight, this year’s process is expected to be even more contentious as the county faces rising costs and only moderate growth in property values. The current budget forecasts a countywide deficit of $118 million next year if revenues don’t exceed targets and services remain the same.

Even if commissioners and Levine Cava do find common ground on the 2027 Solid Waste rates, the current standoff highlights the uphill political path ahead for Miami-Dade to sign off on the kind of electricity-burning trash incinerator that once burned nearly half of the county’s garbage on a daily basis.

Two competing firms are currently in talks for a joint proposal to build the incinerator, though commissioners and the mayor haven’t agreed on where it should go. Meanwhile, the Levine Cava administration is using trucks and trains to ship garbage daily to landfills throughout Florida.

Approving a contract to build a replacement incinerator will mean locking Miami-Dade into a string of yearly rate increases to finance the $2 billion development tab. But not building an incinerator leaves Miami-Dade reliant on the costs of long-haul disposal of the county’s garbage, leaving the county dependent on rates at landfills across Florida.

A 2025 memo by Levine Cava predicted county trash customers would pay higher garbage fees for the first 15 years of a new incinerator as the county takes on debt to build the new facility while still paying to bury all of its trash during the construction period. Once the incinerator opens, the forecast shows a savings as Miami-Dade is able to burn about half of its trash within the county instead of paying market rates to ship the bulk of its trash to private landfills across Florida.