Mike Fernandez, Solid Waste director under Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, said in a letter Monday that he’s resigning his post “with a heavy heart.” He then laid out a series of decisions that have stalled while the county risks running short of the five years of waste-disposal capacity needed to approve future housing projects across Miami-Dade.
“At this point, the County will have to issue a moratorium to stop all development in Miami-Dade County or initiate the plans that were suggested in the past, that would increase disposal capacity,” Fernandez wrote to Levine Cava in a letter giving his two-week notice for a post he’s held since 2019. County laws require Miami-Dade have the landfill space and disposal facilities to absorb five years of projected growth in trash collection in order to approve land-use changes needed for new residential and commercial projects outside of city limits.
Fernandez’s abrupt departure robs Levine Cava of a veteran of Miami-Dade’s Solid Waste Department at a time of maximum stress for the agency. The fire that shut down the privately run incinerator plant in Doral upended the county’s disposal system. It had burned more than half of the trash county trucks pick up on a given day. The calamity forced Miami-Dade to divert garbage to landfills in and out of the county, accelerating the timeline of when the department will run out of space for more trash.
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Author: Douglas Hanks, Miami Herald
Image: Douglas Hanks, Miami Herald