A neighboring company says the expansion into a protected buffer zone should not be validated through a permit renewal, as a court-ordered review moves to the agency
The Caribbean Golf Academy has asked the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DRNA) to open a formal administrative adjudication on the permit renewal of the Carolina landfill. The motion, announced Monday, cites a Court of Appeals ruling and comes from a company that says the expansion has affected its property.
On March 30, Panel V of the Court of Appeals declined jurisdiction over a challenge to the landfill’s operating permit renewal. According to the ruling, the renewal is not final, the agency’s notice had defects, and the public hearing did not constitute a formal adjudicative process.
The court returned the matter to the DRNA so it can issue a proper notice. After that, an affected party can pursue a formal adjudicative process with public hearings. The Caribbean Golf Academy had challenged the renewal in August 2025.
The matter is also before the Senate. According to published reports, the company filed a memorial with the Senate’s Commission on Tourism, Natural Resources and Environment, which is investigating the expansion.
What the company is asking for
In its information motion, the company asks that the proceedings establish three points. The first is that the landfill cannot be expanded through the renewal of a previously granted and now expired permit. The second is that the Municipality of Carolina and its operator, Landfill Gas Technologies, failed to comply with the permit terms by operating outside authorized zones and causing leachate spills. The third is that they are running an illegal operation in an area with special legal protection.
“We are formally requesting that an adjudicative process be carried out, with all applicable rights, because we are not only adjacent to the site but have also been directly affected, given that the expansion has impacted our property,” said engineer Luis Rivera Ortiz, president of the Caribbean Golf Academy and Hacienda Campo Rico, which share a border with the landfill.
Rivera Ortiz said he expects the agency’s process to take into account information about the Municipality of Carolina’s inconsistencies and to acknowledge that the expansion is illegal. He does not oppose the landfill’s operation if it complies with laws and regulations. He objects to the expansion into the buffer zone, which he says would damage his ecotourism business.
The buffer zone and the permit history
The company says the expanded area, about 17 of the 35 cuerdas in the so-called buffer zone, has high ecological value. It forms part of the karst landscape and the Special Planning Area for the Piñones State Forest, and it contains historical resources and habitat for endangered species.
Rivera Ortiz says the expansion did not follow the required legal and regulatory procedures, which call for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). He also says the current renewal process is an attempt to legitimize the expansion.
“An illegal expansion should not be validated through the renewal of an operating permit,” Rivera Ortiz said. “Instead, there should be a requirement for a process that includes a rigorous Environmental Impact Statement, an end to the illegal activity, and the mitigation of the damage caused.”
According to the company, the municipality’s 2011 and 2024 renewal applications did not tell the evaluating agencies that the expansion would extend into the buffer zone. The municipality had designated the tract for conservation as a mitigation measure for a new landfill cell, known as Cell C, and the Planning Board was led to believe that Cell C would span ten cuerdas.
The company also says the municipality has never specified how many cuerdas in the buffer zone have been affected, has not mentioned the Hacienda Campo Rico property, and has not presented a land survey with coordinates for the Cell C expansion. According to published reports, sworn statements from 2024 by municipal representatives said they did not know of documents with the limits or coordinates of Cell C.
Responses and open questions
The company’s memorial before the Senate also disputes statements by a DRNA permits official, Pedro Guevara, whom the company says gave contradictory versions of the landfill’s limits, the affected area and the authorized operating time. These are the company’s allegations and have not been independently verified.
The dispute matters beyond a single site. It tests whether a permit renewal can validate an expansion that the company says was never formally reviewed. The court has returned that question to the DRNA, and the agency’s answer will shape how other landfill renewals are handled.
