Cutler Bay outlines cleanup plan, tax-credit route after arsenic found at Blue Heron Park

Town of Cutler Bay staff described on-the-ground cleanup steps and a financing path using Florida's Brownfields program after soil testing found arsenic across much of Blue Heron Park, a roughly 5-acre park in the Lakes By The Bay community that has been closed since June 27, 2024.

At a community meeting, a town presentation lead (town staff) summarized the site history, the contamination findings and the next steps, and said the town intends to seek a Brownfield-area designation under the Florida Brownfields Redevelopment Act to access state incentives. "The primary contaminant that we see most often in South Florida is arsenic," the presentation lead said, describing arsenic'contaminated soils that range from just below residential criteria to slightly above commercial criteria at portions of the site.

Those results followed a background study done for the town's Legacy Park and Municipal Complex project. The presentation lead said the town then conducted a focused investigation that delineated the horizontal and vertical extent of the soil impacts and installed a groundwater monitoring well; no groundwater impacts have been identified to date.

The town has submitte…