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FROM THE DESK OF
JCB
THE HONORABLE JUAN CARLOS BERMUDEZ
I am writing to you to let you know of an important topic that impacts our City. As you may be aware, as the Founding and Former Mayor of the City of Doral, when in office, I strongly objected to Miami-Dade County choosing the City of Doral as the site of the future County Waste-To-Energy Facility. Despite that, the prior County Commission voted to keep the Facility at the present campus in Doral. As promised, one of the first things I did when elected as your Commissioner in November of 2022 was to begin the process of revisiting that vote and opening consideration of other sites outside of the City of Doral, away from residents. Due to these efforts, in the first quarter of 2023 by unanimous vote, my colleagues on the Board of County Commissioners agreed with my request to re-open the discussion and consider other possible sites.
Unfortunately, Mayor Cava has regrettably reversed course and released a memorandum on Friday, November 22, 2024, recommending that the new Waste-to-Energy Facility be kept within the City of Doral at the existing Resources Recovery Facility site. I cannot begin to express my extreme disappointment, anger, and frustration with the County Administration. In walking back the recommendation she made to use the Airport West site as the location for the new Waste-to-Energy Facility and Solid Waste Campus, Mayor Cava has buckled to special interests, shown poor judgement and lack of leadership, has let Doral Residents down, our County's Residents down, and the environment down. The existing Doral-site is the closest to residents and to the Everglades National Park.
On December 3rd at 9AM we will be having a Board of County Commissioners meeting to discuss where the future Waste-To-Energy Facility will be situated. Since becoming your County Commissioner, I have worked with the County Administration to find alternate sites in District 12 which meet the criteria of being sufficiently far away from residents, as to not have any potential health or traffic impacts, and that could also serve as part of a comprehensive campus for other initiatives that deal with how our County handles its waste.
I have stated in the past and will continue to state that the existing Doral site is unsuitable for this purpose. There are two alternative sites in the northwestern portion of our district which meet these criteria and that are far away from any residents in District 12. One site is an old, decommissioned airport known as “Airport West.” Airport West is a County-owned vacant parcel consisting of over 400 acres, enough to accommodate a “waste campus.” This site is currently being used by the County to store the sargassum (floating seaweed) collected from our beaches. The other site is immediately to the east of the Airport West site and is presently permitted for rock mining.
Unfortunately, some of my colleagues on the County Commission may not be in favor of either the Airport West or the adjacent site and may be open to voting for other sites including the current site in the City of Doral as per Mayor Cava’s recommendation. I urge you to reach out to them and let them know how you feel about the mayor’s recommendation. Additionally, I ask you to be present at the December 3rd meeting so that you can voice your opinion in person. Below are the emails for each County Commissioner and the County Mayor. With your help we can help make sure that the new County Waste-to-Energy Facility is built in a proper place: away from residents of the City of Doral and District 12.
Respectfully,
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