miami recycling company making people sick

Posted on August 29, 2012 by mcooper

Two Miami-Dade County commissioners want investigators to study whether there is a cancer cluster near a recycling plant.

Commissioners Barbara Jordan and Jean Monestime co-sponsored a resolution asking the Florida Department of Health and the Miami-Dade County Health Department to investigate a potential cluster of cancer cases in the vicinity of Northwest 36th Avenue and Northwest 86th Street – an area with Broadmoor Elementary School on one side, a rail yard with an Amtrak station on the other side and homes in between.

Jordan said that several members of the public stepped forward at a July 17 zoning meeting and claimed that eight people died of cancer, and another person contracted cancer, near the King Metal Recycling facility. She wants health investigators to see if those claims can be substantiated.

“We have to verify if what the residents are saying is true,” Jordan said. “We must check it out and make sure we aren’t getting misinformation. If they verify it, then it’s a serious issue.”

Officials at King Metal Recycling, at 8600 N.W. 36th Ave., did not return a call seeking comment.

A video replay of the zoning hearing shows Vanessa Shelton, who lives in the area, talking about the alleged contamination at King Metal Recycling.

“With that recycling plant in the last year or so we had eight people die of cancer and we expect another to die in the next two weeks,” Shelton said. “When you take your hand and wipe it on the sidewalk, there is black soot everywhere. That is all on the same street.”

Miami-Dade Commissioner Chairman Joe Martinez responded that this was the same recycling plant that previously came before the board with a code violation for not covering the plant with walls to protect its surroundings.

“If people are truly dying and these folks aren’t doing anything about it, then this is very serious,” said Monestime, who urged county staff at the meeting to shut the recycling center down if it does not build the retaining wall.

Jordan told the Business Journal that the site of King Metal Recycling was found to have problematic levels of contamination by the county.

County records show that King Metal Recycling bought the 2-acre site for $1.05 million in 2010 from Adelman Steel Corp. The previous owner was cited by the county for code violations in 2006 for work without a permit and in 2008 for unsafe structures.

The county commission will hear the resolution calling for a cancer cluster investigation on Tuesday.

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