Friday, November 08, 2013

Letter to the Miami Herald Regarding Dumping of Toxic Material at Biscayne Landing/Munisport. By Geniusofdespair

Dear Mr. Buteau:

First, thank you for covering this highly important issue at Biscayne Landing. However, your opening graph and the ensuing headline to the article " City: Developers must pay for using soil at site" minimizes the seriousness of the dumping that has occurred.

The 194,000 cubic yards of dumped materials are not "soil." The dumped materials are contaminated wastes. By definition soils are natural materials, with at least some organic material. ( See Wikipedia, among other definitions.)

The developer states that the materials are about 30 % Slag. The documents submitted to DERM and the EQCB include 3 pages of information entitled " Hanson Slag Cement, MSDS Material Safety Data Sheet".

Under Federal Law this stuff is defined to be a "hazardous substance" with delayed health effects. ( CERCLA/superfund, section 311 & 312) [ See Section XV ( mislabeled on the last page of the Hanson info as Section V- Other Regulatory Information)

I listened carefully to the recording of the October 29, 2013 City Council meeting posted on the City's webpage. Everything that Joe Celestine and Frank Wolland said was absolutely correct. The wastes should not be allowed to stay on site. They should be removed. This environmental degradation should not be allowed to occur.

DERM has, once again, has showed incompetence in dealing with the issues here. After all, EPA identified DERM as one of the PRPs ( Potentially Responsible Parties, liable for the full clean-up costs ) in the creation of the Munisport Superfund site. One has to question why DERM would authorize the use of wastes before ever testing them at this environmentally sensitive location close to the residents of Highland Village and local schools.

Very truly yours,

Maureen Brody Harwitz
Executive Director, Munisport Dump Coalition
EPA Region IV TAG Recipient, 1989-1999

1 comment:

Mensa said...

Maureen has it exactly correct. We must do something about the poison at the site. I examined it a very long time ago and it was bad then and it still is poison.