NO! NO! NO! When Curtis Morgan reported today that the developers “could seek financial relief for overruns” the hair on the back of my neck stood up. We should not bail out this development anymore. I don’t have a short memory like the Herald.
NORTH MIAMI | BISCAYNE LANDING: Contaminated condo site gives up on sugar method
I was there during the bidding on the Munisport site, in the room!!! The developer chosen was suppose to pay for the cleanup knowing that $20 million would be kicked in. Watch Sally Heyman, she will try to get them more money at the request of Lobbyist/Lawyer Clifford Schulman. Here is the History again:
The County entered into an agreement involving a 20 million dollar grant from the county paid for by a solid waste department bond issue. We all pay $1 a year into a site cleanup fund.
Under the agreement, City of North Miami would receive 1 million dollars each year to assist in Munisport remediation and closure efforts. This was known to the all the developers who bid on the project: That this money was coming. They bid accordingly, knowing they might have to shoulder more cleanup costs.
This is what the bidders did NOT know: Much more money for cleanup would be coming. How do I know that the developers did not know this? I called one of the losing bidders and asked him. Had he known this, he said, his bid would have changed, however, that is water under the bridge.
In January 2004, the City Commission agreed to enter into a NEW agreement with the County, I believe it was to accept 49 million dollars (Curtis Morgan says $31 million), instead of of the 20 million already agreed on, which was to be used to clean up the landfill. With lots of lawyers involved, the new agreement would supercede the previous one. Rather than one million a year, the city would receive 3.6 million for the first 12 years. By the way, there are other contaminated sites waiting for money. This site has had more than its share.
Cleanup details:
They tried an experimental method underground, it didn’t work. Here is the truth about the DERM designed Biscayne Landing cleanup:
The developer has agreed (finally) to implement the originally approved remediation which involves pumping water out of the ground, treating it in conventional easily controlled above ground system. No water is "used" or wasted. North Miami Mayor Burns tried to suggest to me that pumping the contaminated leachate out of the ground is the same thing as pumping water out of the Biscayne Aquifer for drinking water supply. Obviously, it is not the same. Officials from the SFWMD were asked about this by the Mayor, and they explained that groundwater remediation is not the same as consumptive use and does not harm the water supply or cause salt intrusion. The treated leachate, if it is clean enough, could be returned to the ground, or it may go to the sewage treatment plant. The point is, it is not clean water being used, it is pollution being treated and any exposure pathway that would have affected sensitive organisms is interrupted.
Mayor Burns also told me: Derm was measuring in the wrong place.
The Truth: The point of compliance (where measurement would occur) was agreed upon before hand.
The idea was to make sure that groundwater passing by their experimental in-ground "reactive wall" (the area where the microbes were supposed to convert ammonia to nitrate and then to nitrogen gas, including sugar and O2 pumped into the ground to feed the microbes) came out meeting the target levels of ammonia and nitrate. It never even came close. (See letter from DERM). Some got through without being acted on. They would sometimes say the measurement should have been made within the "reaction", where perhaps a reduction could be measured, or very far away where the untreated leachate would be diluted by other cleaner water. With the traditional system, the "compliance" is measured where the effluent emerges from the treatment system, and before it would go back to the ground or other disposal area.
Mayor Burns has said: that the mangrove trees are healthy, so he doesn't see what the concern is. The concern was never for the trees themselves. The concern has always been for the animals, such as juvenile fish and marine invertebrates that breed around mangroves, which are killed by very high levels of ammonia. Also, the downstream areas of Biscayne Bay, and Arch Creek show evidence of nutrient enrichment where they intercept the leachate plume. That is why the ammonia and nitrate both have to be removed.
The in ground experiment did not even get close to the removal targets. The pump and treat system WILL remove the pollution from the ground and keep it from going to the mangroves and the bay.
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