Reynold Martin and Clarice Cooper have been friends since kindergarten. They remember the acrid smell on their daily walks as children – and preteens – to George Washington Carver Elementary and Middle School in the late 1950s and early 1960s. There was a thick smog that stained their white uniform yellow.
That smell and smog came from Old Smokey, the City of Miami’s municipal waste incinerator that operated from 1926 to 1970.
“It was so pervasive,” said Martin. “We just got used to the smell,”
After years of litigation, on March 27, a state judge certified a class action lawsuit against the City of Miami that could allow hundreds of people like Martin and Cooper who were exposed to ash and waste from Old Smokey to potentially win damages for illness or health problems that resulted.
It’s a landmark case that pits rich and poor citizens of Coconut Grove against one another. It’s also a harsh reminder of segregation days, when mostly black Miami residents were deemed lesser people who could live in a dumping ground.
“It’s huge,” said Douglas Ruley, one of the plaintiff attorneys and director of the University of Miami Environmental Justice Clinic. “This is a very significant step for us. Thousands are now eligible for medical monitoring.”
The incinerator opened in 1926 in the historically Black Coconut Grove neighborhood known as “Little Bahamas.” It was on the corner of Jefferson Street and Washington Avenue. The area to the East was mostly inhabited by white affluent citizens, who were further away from the incinerator and less exposed to the waste.
In fact, much of the ash was buried at local parks where children played and neighbors hung out after work. As Miami’s population grew, so did the waste burned at Old Smokey, and despite renovations in the 1950s meant to reduce smoke and odor, conditions worsened.
The ash spread into nearby Coral Gables and prompted a lawsuit. Residents complained that ash was covering their roofs and pools. The incinerator was declared a public nuisance and closed in 1970.
The site was never fully cleaned, leaving contaminated ash buried in surrounding soil and communities. Subsequently in 1983, it was repurposed for a fire rescue training center still in use today. That buried history resurfaced in 2011, when the City of Miami conducted environmental testing tied to a planned expansion of the fire rescue facility.
The tests revealed elevated levels of toxic substances—including dioxins, arsenic and lead—confirming that pollution from the incinerator had spread beyond the original site into nearby homes, parks and streets.
These findings were not publicly disclosed until 2013, when the Environmental Justice Project, which was led by University of Miami law students, uncovered and shared the data. That effort helped spur creation of the Old Smokey Steering Committee (OSSC), led by University of Miami law professor Anthony Alfieri, founding director of the Center for Ethics and Public Service.
Alfieri assembled a group of West Grove residents, activists and volunteers to form the Old Smokey Steering Committee to pressure regulators into addressing contamination and its health impacts.
It was here that Martin and Cooper joined the fight to hold the city accountable for its mishandling of the incinerator and other issues. They became part of the OSSC board, organizing community meetings, conducting a grassroots health survey and preparing to petition federal agencies for a formal investigation.
“The city has known about the contamination for decades,” said former Miami City Commissioner Ken Russell, who worked for years with the OSSC, supporting Bahamian settler descendants in Coconut Grove. “ It’s time for them to finally act responsibly.”
Cooper has lived in Coconut Grove her entire life, except for the stretches of time in which she was away at college, and has been a pronounced voice in the Grove being part of various organizations like Grove Rights and Community Equity, Inc. (GRACE).
She grew up playing at all the nearby parks, as children they designated them “little park” (referring to Nellie B Moore Park) and “big park” (referring to Esther Mae Armbistrer Park). Both were across the street from Old Smokey. Both have tested positive for hosting contaminants. Cooper was also raised going to the original black churches of Miami-Dade, like Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church. A mere two blocks down, on Charles Avenue.
As the years went by, multiple members of Cooper’s family, including her father, aunt and uncle, died of different cancers. She now deals with a respiratory illness.
“Nobody at the time knew the full effect of breathing that smoke in every day,” said Cooper. “Until people started dying.”
Renald Martin has ancestral ties to original Bimini settlers in Coconut Grove, his mother’s great grandparents were one of the first to arrive in the 1800’s. In his young adult years, he trained and worked as a firefighter at the very same location, where the former Old Smokey stood.
He has spent his whole adult life being an activist within the community.
Martin remembers biking around the neighborhood when it was raining ash. He recallsmembers members of his community who were once strong and full of life, becoming sick and weak. He recalled a friend who at just 10 years old had to change his father’s underpants and help feed him. A man who just years prior was a powerful veteran, died of cancer in his 40’s.
“Many of us dealt with young parental deaths,” recalled Martin. “There’s a lot of stories of misery because of Old Smokey,”
“Billy,” another class member who chose to remain anonymous to avoid influencing the upcoming trial, says he has experienced serious medical trauma that he believes resulted from contamination linked to Old Smokey.
Billy has been diagnosed with sinus meningitis, the severity of his illness ultimately required an invasive surgical procedure.
Meningitis can cause life-threatening brain swelling and pressure, sometimes requiring a decompression craniectomy (removing part of the skull) to prevent permanent damage. In severe cases, infection may spread to the skull, requiring removal of affected bone to eliminate the source
Billy had to get a plate replacement (cranioplasty) and removal of his right temple bone after it became infected. Billy says he hopes to be able to get economic relief in order to retire and pay off his medical debts, after all the hardship he has had to face.
“It’s just a bad situation,” reflected Martin. “Here we are dying of poison, as a poor community getting poorer trying to medicate illness.”
On Friday, March 27, the lawsuit was finally certified as a class action. The first class action filing was almost 10 years ago in 2017, Ruley explained that multiple judges recused themselves on a 6-8 month cycle and the pandemic slowed the process down.
After 5 days of personal testimony from 10 of the plaintiffs and expert testimony from Paul Rosenfeld, who shared his cancer risk findings: as high as 14.9 in a million for one plaintiff and found no plaintiff was assessed below a two-in-a-million cancer risk. Judge Spencer Eig ruled in favor of the plaintiff, certifying they had met the burden of proof.
“The community just wants the city to do the right thing,” said Douglas Ruley.
While Old Smokey was closed 56 years ago, contaminants remain.
Ruley stated the area of potential harm covers over 2,000 properties and now thousands of residents are eligible for medical monitoring. The plaintiff team expects to send the written order this week, once the judge grants this, the class will proceed with merits to go to trial and wait on the defendants next move.
“I feel exuberant that we can now go forward as a class of people, fighting this for 10 years was so much harder as individuals,” said Cooper. “That’s where we are with Old Smokey, it takes a lot of patience, but this is a big step for us, it didn’t happen overnight.”
