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Front Page » Top Stories » Miami-Dade eyes rail to carry away solid waste problem

Miami-Dade eyes rail to carry away solid waste problem

Written by on May 23, 2023
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Miami-Dade eyes rail to carry away solid waste problem

As Mayor Daniella Levine Cava tells county commissioners that she is looking into new ways of handling Miami-Dade’s solid waste and the Transportation Planning Organization is seeking a rail revival in the county, a county resolution seeks to look at using the new rail service to haul solid waste.

A resolution by Commissioner Raquel Regalado due before the county commission June 6 would ask the mayor to explore “the feasibility of utilizing railroad corridors for the transportation and transfer of solid waste and freight within and outside of the county.”

Transferring solid waste out of the county entirely could be a solution to the dilemma of what to do about replacing the county’s 41-year-old waste-to-energy plant in Doral that was put out of action by a fire this year and was in any case due to be replaced. Doral residents have been up in arms about the county’s most recent plan, which was to build a new incinerator beside the old one.

The proposal by Commissioner Regalado would rest in part on the restoration of CSX freight rail service in the county. Discussions in commission committee and the Transportation Planning Organization seek formal negotiations with CSX owners to allow commuter rail rapid transit on their now-dormant county lines by incentivizing the railway with favorable zoning changes along its right-of-way that would make freight service restoration attractive. There has been no formal announcement of talks that could lead to such an end.

Ms. Regalado’s resolution says that “in the last several years, hauling solid waste by rail has evolved from a concept to an accepted transportation strategy almost nationwide and … throughout the East Coast of the United States, solid waste and ash are traveling to landfills and waste-to-energy facilities daily.”

The resolution, if passed by the commission, would require the mayor to report within 60 days on the feasibility of using rail to haul solid waste inside and outside the county, opening the door for shipping the incineration and ash burial problem to some other jurisdiction to solve.

The study would report on any necessary policy changes, estimate the costs, and identify “necessary facilities, such as terminals, intermodal transfer facilities and/or inland ports that would serve as facilities for freight and the disposal of solid waste.”

In a memo to Doral area Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez this month, Mayor Levine Cava said that “in the near future we will be bringing recommendations and options for the Board of County Commissioners … as we work together to formulate sensible short- and long-term plans for managing the county’s waste.”

The fire-damaged waste-to-energy incinerator on 160 acres in Doral is closed. Covanta, which ran it under a county contract, in April laid off the plant’s 64 workers and told the state the layoffs were permanent. The plant handled about 1.1 million tons of waste a year, in the process generating enough electricity to power 35,000 homes and sending the ash to a landfill.

One Response to Miami-Dade eyes rail to carry away solid waste problem

  1. Torleif Bramryd

    May 24, 2023 at 1:14 pm

    From an environmental and climate change point of view, rail transportation to a landfill with capacity and relyable landfill gas collection would be the best option.
    In waste-to-energy plants (incinerators) more than 50 % of the CO2 in the stack-gasses is of fossil origin from plastics, synthetic textiles, a.s.o., and incinerators are major sources of fossil emissions.To counteract global warming, accumulation of organic matter in landfills is a way of long-term sequestriation of organic carbon, and positive from a global warming point of view, provided that more than approx. 60 % of the produced landfill gas is collected. This can be used for electric power production or be refined to motor fuel or raw material in chemical industry.

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