The county commission is about to consider a proposal to recoup more than $1 billion in cost overruns at Miami International Airport by turning a decommissioned airfield in Northwest Miami Dade into a rock quarry.
This proposal is badly flawed.
In principle, it may make sense to reallocate one underperforming public asset to the benefit of another.
But if this happens--masking the pillaging of the public interest at the airport--it must be accompanied by a balance to benefit the public.
Here is how that can be accomplished: allocate half the profit from the proposed rock mine to a dedicated funding source for public interest organizations that have successfully battled rock miners in federal court in Miami.
The county commission has aided and abetted illegal activities by Miami-Dade rock miners, at a great cost to the public.
Environmental groups battling the rock mining industry are a scrappy lot, chronically under-funded, and relying on federal laws that are under repeated attack in Congress.
So if a distant rock mine is going to come to the fiscal rescue of Miami International Airport, it should equally be employed to rescue the public from the impacts of private rock mining on public lands, in another part of the county.
Miami Today quotes an aviation official, “Over the 20-year life of a county-run mine, our revenues would be $300 to $600 million, based on today’s prices.”
We suggest allocating half that benefit, or $150 to $300 million, to qualified public interest organizations that have used courts of law to enforce the protection of the public health, safety, environment and welfare of citizens.
Call it, leveling the playing field.
In Miami-Dade county, rock mining is the most powerful and richest industry that most people never heard of, but if you fly in and out of Miami International Airport, you will be familiar with its by-product: a series of lifeless and oddly colored pits filled with fresh water from the Everglades.
The green down there is the color of money. Rock mining has a long history in Miami-Dade County. From fossilized coral reef it produces a basic commodity: aggregate used for highway construction and concrete products.
Rock mining in Miami-Dade county generates a billion in revenues. Its principal shareholders are wealthier and more secretive than the sugar industry.
We have noted in other posts how de facto county commission chair Natacha Seijas has knee-capped every proposal—even by the county’s own staff-that would make the rock miners pay for their own pollution of our drinking water aquifer. One measure Seijas accomplished: the elimination of public hearings for rock mining permittees.
In Miami federal court, the rock mining industry has spent close to $20 million in litigation expenses to keep its secrets and defend its illegal activities.
But for the intervention of environmental groups—Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council—citizens would have no idea that drinking water aquifers for Miami Dade County have been contaminated by rock miners with benzene, a cancer-causing substance.
Through their lawsuit, these groups extracted information and proved that our government and the US Army Corps of Engineers have allowed rock mining to continue in violation of important laws protecting the public health and environment.
Strong elected leaders would understand the value in helping watchdogs use the judicial system to offer a check and balance on private industry’s influence. But the reality is, most elected leaders cannot keep their office without cutting deals with private industry and the nature of those deals define the limits of our democracy.
So, our proposal is on the table: if the benefit to the public in turning a decommissioned airfield into a rock pit is to accrue to Miami International Airport, then at least half the benefit should also accrue to those organizations who have defended our water supply from incursions by private rock pits, ruining our drinking water aquifer and turning restoration of the Everglades into a mirage.
We wait for the counter-offer.
5 comments:
Here, Here!:
"We suggest allocating half that benefit, or $150 to $300 million, to qualified public interest organizations that have used courts of law to enforce the protection of the public health, safety, environment and welfare of citizens."
Recalls that attempt last year to cap the use fees on rock miners. Who was it, Rep. Garcia who put that forward? Would have put taxpayers on the hook again for the foul-ups of industry.
These committee "renamings" are definitely troubling from Berreiro. More shell games from the Clark Center.
the photo is not working.
photo is fixed, thanks for the info.
a question for you. The mayor hires and fires dept. heads. However, these same dept. heads have to make preliminary presentations to the heads of the committees. That means there is interaction between dept. heads and the commissioners besides at the meetings. These preliminary meetings or informational meetings are held all the time with staff and the head of the committee (no sunshine if only one commissioner). How can we keep track of the private sector and the commission when we can't even keep track of the commissioners and staff?
That is the point about the county commission... they want to have additional staff to counter-balance the Mayor's control of staff (kind of like hiring "hired guns to look at the truth from their side of the fence).
Or else they will simply vote the opposite way of county staff recommendations. Of course, we are sort of used to them ignoring county staff counsel anyway.
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