The Miami-Dade Health Department is investigating concerns of a cancer cluster in a northwest Miami-Dade County neighborhood.
Several residents who live in the neighborhood of Northwest 83rd Street and 36th Avenue took their concerns to a county commission meeting in July. The possible link will again be addressed when commissioners meet Thursday night.
"We look at numbers, we look at statistics, we look at data -- we make comparisons. Are the percentages of deaths from cancer disproportionate?" said Lillian Rivera with the Miami-Dade Health Department.
The residential neighborhood has two schools and is bordered by King Recycling, which the county thought was closed because of an expired permit. Tuesday morning, a county worker arrived to present King Recycling with a code violation. The citation directed the company to cease storing, processing or disposing of waste without proper permits.
The owner of King Recycling offered no comment about the investigation. King Recycling is registered to three men, and is among three industrial-type businesses listed with the state with addresses at the plant and another eight businesses listed at a plant two miles away.
"If things start making sense from an environmental perspective, from a genetic perspective, from a scientific perspective, then we have something to go on," said Rivera.
County commissioners plan on discussing the possible cancer cluster during a meeting on Thursday.