Miami Lakes homeowners upset over 'rock quarry damaging blasts'
NORTHWEST MIAMI DADE - The fight to get rock quarry companies to be quieter continues with a Miami Lakes meeting Monday night to discuss what can be done to protect residential homes and public infrastructure.
"The big thing that concerns me is the structural damage," Miguel Martinez, a Northwest Miami Dade resident said.
Martinez has had to fix cracks not only to his house but damage to his roofing within recent years, and he blames the blasting that has been going on about 2 miles away from his home. Rock quarry companies have maintained they are following state standards.
"And you can see it's separating from the wall," Martinez points to the cracks around his home to show otherwise.
It's not just him and his neighbors but, residents that live from 2 to 11 miles away from quarry sites also report blasting damage.
"This is everywhere in this whole town," Angelo Garcia who lives in Palm Springs North said.
Garcia believes the blasting has also caused erosion to the back of his property, and that could undermine the roadway nearby.
Martinez is working with residents like Garcia as part of his role on the Miami Lakes Blasting Advisory Board.
"When you show these monsters that you aren't playing around, that you have hundreds of people going after them, then they will do something, but we have to stop playing games with them," said Garcia.
"The burden is on the claimant and that's another issue is it a specific blast, is it all the blasts those are defenses that the mining companies have used in the past," Steve Herzberg, another board member said.
Residents have been turning to election officials for change, but the road to introducing legislation has faced a lot of pushback. Representative Tom Fabricio has been working closely with colleagues and just recently had monitors installed around Miami-Dade County to collect blasting data.
"That damage should be compensated, if we're able to pass that bill that would be law in Florida, currently that's not the case, ultimately what I think the ideal solution is that the ground vibrations are reduced," he said.
Residents from anywhere they believe the blasts are felt are also being encouraged to fill out their report for the state to conduct further analysis. You can see the form here.
"This is a matter of tax dollars as well from state and local tax dollars, and commercial businesses everybody that feels these blasts in Dade and Broward County have something at state here," Herzberg added.
Residents contend they don't want to stop the rock quarry companies from blasting or operating, they reiterate, they just want the blasting damage not to come into their homes.
