Huge North Broward Landfill Asks To Expand
BY BUDDY NEVINS
The huge landfill along Florida’s Turnpike in North Broward wants to expand.
Waste Management, the nationwide waste handler that owns the 350-acre landfill, will ask the Broward County Commission shortly to rezone another 37 acres to use as a landfill.
The land was always envisioned as part of the site’s eventual build-out, according to waste industry sources and a Waste Management spokeswoman.
“It is land within the boundaries of our site,” said Dawn McCormick, community affairs manager for Waste Management in South Florida.
Regardless of whether the expansion was always part of the landfill’s plans, commission sources say they expect opposition from some in Coconut Creek.
Coconut Creek residents, who live just a whiff away from the landfill, have complained about the odor for years.
This time they’ll have to take their complaints to City Hall. The city signed an agreement with Waste Management in September stating that the landfill could be expanded on the 37 acres.
“It is something that was envisioned when we signed the agreement with Coconut Creek in 2010,” McCormick said.
The 37 acres are just a small fraction of the 500 acres that Waste Management owns between Powerline Road and the Turnpike in North Broward. In addition to the the 350-acre landfill, there are waste-to-energy facilities, offices and maintenance buildings.
Waste Management has made a public relations effort to improve the image of the landfill in the last year.
The landfill was nicknamed Mount Trashmore for a generation. In April, it was officially renamed Monarch Hill Renewal Energy Park.
The new name highlights the firm’s relationship with nearby Monarch High. The new name also puts a positive spin on the landfill’s proximity to Coconut Creek, which bills itself as the butterfly capital. (Get it? Monarch, like Monarch butterflies.).
Calling itself a “renewal energy park” also emphasizes the waste-to-energy facilities on the site, which produce enough electricity and gas for 50,000 homes.
The landfill firm has also planted trees, butterfly-attracting plants and handed out scholarships at Monarch High School. The firm also allowed a movie company to reconstruct the famed Hollywood sign so that the landfill could double for a California backdrop.
The public relations push probably won’t convince nearby Coconut Creek residents to love the landfill. I can’t help but remind them – the landfill was here first!
It began in 1965 with a 10-foot pile of waste. Coconut Creek was formed two years later.
August 22nd, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Before this gets out of hand let’s have a very frank and direct conversation. There should NOT be any expanded openings of landfills in Broward. None. That is not the way to deal with garbage in this century. It’s smelly and bad for communities. They need to deal with the garbage problem in the smart way, not the stupid way.
August 22nd, 2011 at 5:01 pm
They might have been here before, but we are here now and we will recall any commissioner who approves any expansion of that landfill.
August 22nd, 2011 at 6:23 pm
Creek Resident and I see exactly eye-to-eye on this issue.
August 22nd, 2011 at 6:54 pm
This is good. Not the expansion, but the threat of expansion of the landfill. It forces us to have the dialogue we need.
We need to be diverting from landfills. Too much travels there and we have the ability to divert more, except that no one wants transfer stations in their backyard.
We need to find tested, proven technologies to reduce that which can not be diverted.
We need to conserve more — reduce the use of petroleum products and other products that are clogging our landfills.
We need to recycle more — each of us, all of us.
If we do not do all of this (and more) then expansion of landfills will always be a dominant part of the dialogue.
Thank you Waste Management for scaring us into talking about what we need to do.
August 23rd, 2011 at 9:38 am
I am tired of a few whiners in cocoNUT Creek trying to tell everyone else in the county what to do. I wish they would build Mt Trashmore 1000 feet high! If you examine the area around the dump, it is loaded with recyclers and sorters and so on. Everything from scrap iron and copper to landscape debris is separated and processed appropriately. On top of that, what can be burned for fuel to generate electricity adds greatly to our economy, not to mention the natural gas. And I am not talking about the gas coming from the whiners in cocoNUT Creek.
August 23rd, 2011 at 10:13 am
RECYCLE
RECYCLE
RECYCLE
August 23rd, 2011 at 10:26 am
Smart Move and Jerry are wrong.
We need more landfill space because this community is growing. Some things can not be recycled. Some things can be recycled at a great expense which makes it uneconomical.
If Mr. Smart Move can tell us what the “smart way” to deal with waste is that doesn’t include any disposal in a landfill, I would like to know it. Incinerators create poisonous ash and dirty air. The ash must be placed in a LANDFILL.
Before spouting Green slogans, people must realize that LANDFILLS are needed. IT IS BETTER TO EXPAND AN EXISTING LANDFILL AND REOPEN ONES THAT ARE NOT BEING USED THAN TO BUILD NEW ONES.
August 23rd, 2011 at 11:04 am
The dump (Mt. Trashmore) is much less offensive than it used to be. Once upon a time you smelled it when passing by on the Turnpike — not so much anymore. As someone said above, better to expand an existing site, with very little, if any, additional impact on the surrounding area, than to build a new one from scratch (which probably would be nearly impossible to do anyway).
August 24th, 2011 at 11:32 am
Dream World: The answer is recyling our garbage. Separating it out and reusing it. All waste has value. Even waste to energy through incineration, within reason and protecting the environment as best one can, is much better than burying garbage. Look at what goes into your garbage can. Glass, plastics and metals, paper, wood — all of that can be recycled and reused. Garden waste and vegetation can be reused in the form of mulch and compost. Most of our food waste goes into our drains now, is captured in our sewage treatment facilities, gets processed and treated, and is reformatted for reuse in farming. Construction waste and concrete can be ground down and reused. All waste can be processed more intelligently. The least intelligent way to deal with waste is burying it. Medical waste and biohazardous chemicals, paints, industrial fluids, all that stuff has to be managed very carefully. You don’t bury that shit because it gets into the water supply. The liners they have in landfills help and yet we have serious issues with leachate, the poluting effect of it, and the conversion of buried gargage into methane which is helpful when you burn it but poisonous if not contained. Everyone that works in the field, all environmentalists agree, that there are intelligent and not so smart ways of dealing with waste. Burying it is on top of the stupid-way-to-do business list.
April 13th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
I have to agree entirely, but if a call is made, don’t we still have to go ahead? I’m in agreement, but what are the alternatives? Good articlethough. Thanks.