As lawyers seek to have the Old Smokey lawsuit certified as a class action, West Grove community leaders want more residents to be tested for medical conditions.
As the “Old Smokey” lawsuit trudges on, community leaders are urging West Grove residents – past and present – to get screened for medical conditions that may be linked to toxins left behind by the incinerator that spewed a cloud of ash over the neighborhood for nearly 50 years.
“As we get deeper into this litigation and get an understanding of how many of us lost relatives — aunts and uncles and parents — to the same conditions, that’s when you start to realize that, disproportionately, a lot of the people in our community died from the same illness,” Carolyn Donaldson said earlier this month at a community screening of the documentary “Old Smokey: A Community History.”
Donaldson grew up in Coconut Grove when smoke and ash billowed from the City of Miami’s incinerator six days a week. Two months ago, she buried the last of her siblings. Before that she said goodbye to her parents and grandparents, all from diseases that may have been linked to exposure to the incinerator’s toxic byproduct.
Now in its eighth year of litigation, the lawsuit against the City of Miami claims residents have been exposed to several toxins known for causing cancer and other illnesses. These include dioxins, arsenic, barium and lead that were never removed from the soil after the incinerator, nicknamed Old Smokey, shut down in 1970.
The contaminants were discovered in 2011 during a routine environmental assessment of the former incinerator site, now the City of Miami’s Fire Rescue Training Center. Over the years the city closed, tested and cleaned several parks where ash from the incinerator was dumped. But plaintiffs say West Grove residents were left behind.
“They’re skipping over Carver [schools], and they’re skipping over everybody that lived in the Kingsway projects and other communities,” Donaldson told a small crowd that attended the screening of the documentary at Miami-Dade College’s Gibson Education Center on Grand Avenue.
The lawsuit claims the City of Miami not only failed to inform them of the hazards likely buried in the soil of their backyards, but to take any action to remedy a situation that many fear has left them and their relatives with health conditions.
To rectify the wrongdoing, plaintiffs are asking for financial compensation for medical costs and property damages and to set up a medical monitoring program for future illness. The City of Miami did not respond to a request for comment from the Spotlight.
Last December, the Downs Law Group, the firm suing the city, confirmed what many had suspected: 80% of the private residential sites tested by the firm had dioxin levels that surpassed county-wide limits. This was found up to a mile away from the former incinerator site.
Now, the firm must demonstrate the elevated level of contaminants are responsible for the illnesses residents say have plagued the community.
In December, the court is scheduled to decide whether the case qualifies for class action status. If certified, anyone that has lived within a mile of Old Smokey, attended the Carver Schools, the Barnyard or Saint Alban’s Child Enrichment Center or played at any of the contaminated parks would be able to join the class.
Finding similar diseases among those that join could prove key to winning the case.
In 2013 researchers at the University of Miami found a cluster of pancreatic cancer cases in the West Grove, which they believed may have been linked to high concentrations of arsenic in drinking water. It was an early indicator something might have been off in the community.
In order for those clusters to emerge, the firm needs as many people as possible with health conditions and a connection to Old Smokey to come forward, especially those with a family history like Donaldson’s.
Attorney Jason Clark says the firm has already retained hundreds of clients in addition to the inaugural group of plaintiffs. If the case is certified as a class action, he believes this number could reach well into the thousands.
But testing numbers have not been as high as Reynold Martin, the chairman of GRACE (Grove Rights and Community Equity) had hoped for.
“I’m shocked, because we’re not doing enough testing of people that have been exposed,” Martin said during last week’s discussion. “I think then and only then will the city say, ‘Look, let’s resolve this.’”
Donaldson says some people choose not to share their illnesses while others are uninformed about the possible connection between Old Smokey and their health.
“I think oftentimes we suffer with particular illnesses, and we identify that it’s for a whole host of reasons other than what the actual cause is. I certainly can say for those of us that grew up in West Grove, I don’t ever recall my parents saying that any of the soot that settled on us and on the grounds that we had to play in would be harmful to us for our health,” Donaldson said.
Still, Clark and fellow attorney Doug Ruley, the director of the Environmental Justice Clinic at the University of Miami, says they are confident the case will be classified as a class action.
“The City of Miami is vigorously opposing and defending the case, and seems quite resistant to the idea of providing some measure of justice for this community. So, we’ll keep pursuing it until they do,” Ruley said.
While this potential class-action lawsuit has been moving forward in state court, another group representing Kingsway Apartments sued the city in federal court last September, alleging a violation of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).
The lawsuit pointed to many of the same concerns, including the contaminants from Old Smokey discovered by the city in 2011 and the more recent exposure to PFOS through the Fire Rescue Training Center. The case was dismissed on May 15, 2025.
This is not the first time South Florida has dealt with an environmental contamination case resulting from an incinerator.
In Fort Lauderdale, a nearly identical lawsuit was filed after the Hinton family suspected a connection between their chronic illnesses, including their daughter’s death from cancer, and contaminants left in the soil from a nearby incinerator’s ash.
With 182 named plaintiffs, the case dragged on for 13 years before it was settled right before its class action hearing. The plaintiffs were awarded $18 million, far from their original ask of $150 million.
