Waste Management wants deal with Broward to allow Monarch Hill dump to rise as much as another ten stories

By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org

After Waste Management’s four-year push toward a significant expansion of its Monarch Hill dump was yanked from the Broward Commission’s Tuesday agenda, the immediate question was why?

The answer now appears to be that the $20-billion, Houston-based garbage disposal company is looking to make a deal.

While nothing’s been said on the record at a public meeting, County Commissioner Beam Furr – who also serves as vice chair on the newly constituted Solid Waste and Recycling Authority – and Coconut Creek Mayor Joshua Rydell both told Florida Bulldog Tuesday that WM’s lobbyists have recently suggested the company was willing to stop putting municipal solid waste, which generates methane, into the landfill in exchange for raising the ceiling on how high the landfill on unincorporated property astride Florida’s Turnpike in North Broward can go.

How high? No numbers were mentioned. But earlier this week, WM spokeswoman Dawn McCormick said, “Our engineers believe that a max height would be in the 325-to-340-foot range.”

That would be like piling on 10 more stories of trash. Today, the dump is fast approaching its 225-foot limit.

County Commissioner Lamar Fisher requested the removal of the Waste Management agenda item. He did not return Florida Bulldog’s phone calls asking him to explain.

MONARCH HILL HEARING RESET FOR MAY 21

Tuesday’s postponed hearing on Waste Management’s application to redesignate the permitted usage for the site of a decommissioned waste-to-energy plant on company property adjacent to Monarch Hill, from electrical generation to industrial, was immediately reset for consideration at the commission’s May 21 meeting.

“I’d like to postpone it for 20 years,” Commissioner Mark Bogen, whose district includes Coconut Creek, said in an interview.

McCormick, who previously told Florida Bulldog that Monarch Hill would reach capacity in six years, said Tuesday that Waste Management agreed to postponing the item “because the staff and commissioners wanted more time to review the land use plan amendment [which was proposed to be changed] and for all parties to seek input from the community.”

McCormick declined to discuss whether new height proposals have been made to the county.

“I’m not going to detail anything that’s being discussed in a private meeting…but there are several proposals that the county can consider,” she said.

Likewise, McCormick would not say Tuesday whether WM would apply to the county for a height variance.

“Waste Management believes it’s in the county’s best interest to maximize the horizontal footprint and the vertical airspace of Monarch Hill landfill. So, we’ll continue to discuss that with our county commissioners, the county staff and with the public at large,” McCormick said. “We want to be a partner in providing solutions for Broward County.”

COMMISSIONERS WANT RECYCLING, COMPOSTING

Coconut Creek Mayor Rydell, whose city has long endured the stench and sight of the nearby bulging Monarch Hill, opposes increasing the landfill’s height.

“I believe what they’re coming to the table with is they just want to put construction and demolition [C&D] debris and vegetation in the landfill in exchange for going higher,” he said. “But the problem with that is drywall is some of the most noxious smelling material you can have. And it’s also the most recyclable … So they should be committing to build a C&D recycling facility as opposed to seeking a rezoning of the land” to expand the dump.

McCormick said that currently “only about 10 percent of what comes into Monarch Hill is municipal solid waste, or MSW.”

County Commissioner Furr, whose district in Broward’s southeast corner is miles away from Monarch Hill, said, “I’m more interested in what’s going into the landfill than how big it is because I don’t want to see any additional solid waste or organics going in there because of the amount of methane that it emanates. I want to reduce methane. That’s the main culprit in global warming.”

Furr noted that Broward generates 10 million pounds of garbage a day, and 4 million tons every year. What he hopes is that much of that trash, its huge component or organic MSW, will eventually be composted.

Today, there is no significant composting in Broward. And Furr acknowledged, “I don’t know where that would be” located.

“We’re really kind of trying to push away at Waste Management to be better environmental stewards. Not just have these landfills be giant methane factories,” he said. “Although for the people in Coconut Creek and perhaps Pompano and Deerfield Beach, too, they would be concerned about a significant height increase in that place no matter what’s there.”

Still, Furr said that the elimination of methane-generating organic trash at Monarch Hill would result, in about five years, in a significant lessening of the noxious odor.