MIAMI LAKES, F.L (NCC News) — Miami Lakes residents are spending thousands of dollars in home repairs for destruction they did not cause.
Under 10 miles away, miners have been blasting the ground collecting limestone for the past 30 years. Over time, these blasts have caused cracks and leaks all over homes in the town next door.
Idel Llavore, a Miami Lakes resident of over 20 years, has been advocating against white rock blasting ever since she first moved into her home.
Within the first couple of hours of living in her home, Llavore felt a tremor. The blast from miles away cracked multiple tiles in her living room, but that was just the first of many damages she would have to fix.
“The damages that we’ve been having [have] been severe,” she said. “My son’s bedroom collapsed completely; the roof collapsed completely. My master bath, my master room was getting flooded every time.”
Apart from the tiles in her house, Llavore’s backyard has cracks so large that, a year ago, the concrete surrounding her pool lifted. That was her breaking point.
Since 2000, Llavore has spent over $50,000 in repairs of damages caused by the blasts.
“It’s been a lot of money for us. Money that we sacrificed from buying groceries to paying to bills to fix the house,” she said. “$50,000 maybe for [the miners] is nothing. For us it is.”
But Llavore doesn’t want money from the miners, she wants them to take responsibility.
“I tell everybody, I am not going to give up. I am not going to give up,” Llavore said. “I don’t want money. I want them to be accountable.”
Llavore has been advocating against the blasts in the community. One of her main forms of communicating concern is through Facebook groups.
“Every blast, I go around to see my property damages. For the last weeks of blasting, I did not because [I honestly am too depressed] about it,” she wrote in the Facebook group “Blasting Victims & Homeowners Seeking Justice.”
Her posts were so popular amongst residents that she was sponsored to go to Tallahassee in February to speak with the state government about the issue. But the meeting was not what she expected.
“As much as the Tallahassee people pretend in public not to know about [the blasting, behind] closed doors, they do acknowledge to know,” she writes in a Facebook post to the group. “Apparently someone, or more than one, was not happy for us to be there and waived our names not to be call[ed] to speak.”
“We were censored,” said Llavore. “They censored us.”
25-year-old Adrian Jesus Jimenez had no experience in politics, but after seeing nothing getting done about reoccurring issues, he decided to run for commissioner.
“At some point, is anyone going to do anything about it?” he said. “Here at the local level, they’re trying to tell us, ‘Our hands are cuffed,’ when I don’t think they are. And I think that’s a lot of excuse that a lot of local politicians give us.”
In addition to cracks throughout his home, Jimenez’s pool leaks constantly from pipes being shifted because of the blasts. He estimates his family has spent over $20,000 in repairs, and that’s not including water costs to refill the pool.
What troubles Jimenez most is knowing, despite the fact these blasts are causing destruction, the town continues to build new homes.
“I wonder if they’re telling people, ‘Hey, by the way, there’s explosions. Is that what you want?’ Or are they just selling it and like failing to mention it to people?” he said.
The town’s response to the complaints is that it’s out of its jurisdiction.
“The jurisdiction and regulation over blasting activities does not rest with the town nor the county but with the State of Florida,” reads the town’s website. “The State has established a process for complaints to be filed.”
