The Town of Miami Lakes is making moves to lessen the impact of dynamite blasting of limestone upon property owners.
Next steps include forming a regional alliance and perhaps suing the state, which regulates the mining industry.
The Blasting Advisory Board presented to the council an 84-page opinion, with exhibits, about steps the town could take.
A reality is that property owners must co-exist with the industry, which provides material to build roads. The state of Florida is its largest customer.
“These mines are building South Florida,” Board Secretary Steven Herzberg said at a July 2 sunshine meeting.
(Herzberg is a lawyer and is also running for Seat 5 on the town council in November.)
Rock mine blasting is regulated by the Florida Chief Financial Officer’s Office through the Fire Marshal’s Office; municipalities and counties lost local control in the early 2000s, Herzberg told The Miami Laker.
Town Attorneys Raul Gastesi and Lorenzo Cobiella, as well as Gastesi’s legal partner Raul Lopez agreed that they should focus on options against the state, rather than the industry.
“The residents deserve that we look into it,” Gastesi said then.
During the June 11 municipal meeting, the council directed Gastesi to see if the town has standing to sue the state, on grounds that the government is denying residents access to courts to sue for damages to properties.
No town money has been allocated yet for a legal fight, Town Manager Edward Pidermann said on July 12.
The council also directed staff to form alliances with Miami-Dade County and affected towns within it, as well as get support from the state fire marshal, Miami-Dade League of Cities and Florida League of Cities to advocate during the next legislative session for reform of rock mine blasting laws.
Herzberg’s opinion comes after the town’s volunteer Blasting Advisory Board lobbied state legislators during four trips in the last three years, seeking to regulate the blasting levels in some of the mines that are west of Interstate 75 and Miami Lakes and south of Miramar.
Public meetings held at Country Club of Miami and in Miami Lakes town hall have drawn elected officials including Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and Miami-Dade County Commissioner Sen. Rene Garcia and Fla. Rep. Tom Fabricio, R, Miami Lakes.
They have listened to residents’ complaints about daily blasts that shake their homes and crack ceilings, lift in-ground pools and cause decorations to fall from walls, according to comments at the public meetings and posts on social media.
Damage cases are heard by the Division of Administrative Hearings, not trial courts, which the board calls “a barrier to redress” and “a flawed and unfair system.”
The board also wants to collaborate with homeowners’ associations to raise awareness and document property damage.
Fabricio’s House Bill 245 (2024) to regulate blasting levels died in a workshop. It was the fourth such bill that didn’t make it through the legislature.
Herzberg posted the board’s report on June 9 on the Blasting Victims & Homeowners Seeking Justice page on Facebook.
It’s also attached to the town council agenda for the June 11 meeting for residents to learn more about the situation and the board’s research and recommendations.