Operators of the Medley landfill want to go 75 feet higher and keep piling on the trash for 10 years longer than currently planned at their facility, which stinks for miles.
And the state was poised to grant the “application for significant modification” — until the city of Doral stepped in. Now, citizens have until Aug. 8 to send any questions or concerns. That’s Thursday.
The Florida of Department of Environmental Protection on July 5 published its notice to grant the permit for significant modification to Waste Management to allow operations through 2036, instead of 2026 as it is now, and the maximum vertical height to be increased from 265 feet to 340 feet.
That’s like 30 stories. The original Mount Trashmore 
(photo), seen from Florida’s Turnpike near Coconut Creek in Broward, stands 225 feet tall.
The city of Doral received 288 odor complaints from residents near the landfill in 2018. The stench is described as rotten eggs mixed with paint fumes — and it gets worse in the summer heat. City leaders have requested federal funds for air quality monitors and commissioned studies on water and soil quality. They want to know if contaminants from the trash heap are seeping into the ground and the water table when it rains.
“We’re expecting those results at the end of the month,” said Mayor Juan 
Carlos “JC” Bermudez. He and the council instructed the city attorney to request a public hearing. “We object to the increase in size,” Bermudez said.
City Attorney Luis Figueredo told Political Cortadito that he planned to file the petition for a public hearing on Wednesday.
“The odor currently emitted from the landfill operations has a deleterious impact on thousands of Doral residents living in close proximity to the landfill,” Figueredo wrote to the DEP July 18.
“If landfill gas management and odor control procedures are not implemented 
prior to permitting the vertical expansion of the current operations the objectionable odors emitted from the current operation will worsen and substantially impact the health and quality of life of those nearby citizens exposed to the landfill emissions and objectionable odors. ”
Granting the permit without mitigating these odors would violate the state’s own requirements, Figueredo added.
“The expansion of the facility operations that is currently causing objectionable odors without first implementing corrective actions designed to mitigate the impacts currently caused violates the requirements for permitting the vertical expansion of landfills,” he said.
“The undisputed fact is that the existing landfill stinks and a larger landfill will stink even more.”
He said the DEP should mandate better odor control.
“Odors have been a continuing problem and unfortunately the Doral residents suffer when hiccups occur in the facility’s landfill gas control systems. An upgrade and expansion of the gas collection and control system should therefore be required by DEP to mitigate the impacts from the current landfill operations,” Figueredo wrote.
There are some who think the state ought to go the other way and shut this 
landfill down. At the very least they think there should be a public hearing.
“I don’t want a single permit issued without a public hearing,” said Ann Ryan, a resident of Grand Bay who has organized opposition and started a Facebook page called “End Medley’s Trash Operation.”
“Let’s Make Doral’s Air Fit to Breathe,” it says in the banner photo.
Ryan understands that when she knew the landfill was there when she firwt rented her home. “But the expected life was supposed to end in seven years,” she said.
Now she and her neighbors may have to put up with another 17 years.
Ryan, who used to work in solid waste up north before moving to Doral, says 
she has a number of concerns about the landfill, which she says predates modern standards that include lined landfill cells and the collection and treatment of leachate, which is the water that runs off the trash pile.
“Before an application to expand the dump is granted, the facility should be required to install state of the art leachate and air pollution controls,” Ryan said, adding that since the 1990’s, “this facility has a record of repeated noncompliance with basic permit conditions including on what was accepted, leachate, air pollution controls, prohibited materials.”
She wants a history of all the inspections performed.
“The facility is so ridiculously close to the condos at Grand Bay, there should be a specific plan to eliminate the risk of landslide or structural failure in the case of a major hurricane,” she said.
Doral Councilwoman Christi Fraga says she hopes the state at least delays 
the permit another 90 days before extending operations so they can get the results of soil and water quality testing done by the city in November.
“As neighbors of the facility, we should be granted the right to review the application and have our own team of engineers, scientists and experts look at the impacts the expansion will have on our city,” Fraga said.
“As a city we have invested resources to mitigate and study the impact of this facility over time that should be submitted as part of the analysis for expansion.”
Questions and concerns — and a demand for a public hearing — should be sent to Agency_Clerk@dep.state.fl.
Doral fights planned expansion of Medley’s ‘Mount Trashmore’ added by Ladra on
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