MIAMI (WSVN) - Miami City Manager Emilio Gonzalez announced that the Melreese Country Club has been shut down until further notice because of unsafe levels of arsenic.
Gonzalez announced the closure of the city’s only public course, at 1802 NW 37th Ave., just before 4:40 p.m., Tuesday.
“The City of Miami has closed Melreese Country Club Golf Course until further notice,” City of Miami spokesperson Stephanie Severino said. “The golf course will be reopened as soon as we receive favorable analysis.”
Michelle Rodriguez, who has played at the course for years, said she did not know about the soil’s contamination underneath the course’s manicured fairways and greens.
“I really never knew about it, and honestly, I don’t know much about the subject, but it wouldn’t stop me from coming to this golf course,” Rodriguez said.
Gonzalez released a statement on the closure that said the course will close until further notice at the close of business.
“At the close of business today, the City of Miami will close Melreese Country Club/Golf Course until further notice. The purpose of this action is to allow outside experts to analyze the results of substantial new environmental testing conducted at the course. The golf course will be reopened pending a favorable analysis,” Gonzalez said in a statement.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said a study on the site’s soil was done as part of negotiations for the proposed Miami Freedom Park. The site is where Inter Miami CF, Miami’s Major League Soccer expansion team, plans to build a $1 billion stadium and commercial complex.
“That is a huge concern,” Suarez said. “I certainly am not going to be playing golf there. The good news here is that, number one, as a result of this negotiations, we uncovered this, and number two, the team has continually maintained that they will pay for the entire remediation cost, thus saving the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.”
A spokesperson for the Miami Freedom Park project also released a statement, Tuesday.
“We will be working with the city and [the Miami-Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Mangement] to implement a remediation plan that is thorough, and provides residents and visitors a destination that is safe for all to enjoy,” the statement read in part.
However, Miami-Dade County officials said the site is safe.
Lee Hefty, DERM’s assistant director, said the county and the city are staying on top of the contamination concerns.
“Well, the important thing to understand is that we’ve known that the site has had contamination,” Heft said. “It continues to be safe. There’s a few areas that have come to light that have debris exposed at the surface, and a few areas where the levels are higher than we believe are acceptable, and so we are working with the city to have them address those areas specifically.”
Gonzalez said he will be hiring outside experts to look closer at the study.
Neither city nor county officials have released a timetable to reopen the golf course.
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