Companies tell Puerto Rico Senate a DNER official misled lawmakers on Carolina landfill expansion
Two companies, Hacienda Campo Rico and Caribbean Golf Academy, have filed a 28-page memorandum with the Senate Committee on Tourism, Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs alleging that the permits director at the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources gave lawmakers misleading information about the permit renewal and expansion of the Carolina municipal landfill, sanjuandailystar.com reported on October 15, 2026.
What the companies told the committee
The companies, through their president, say the Cell C expansion encroaches on a 34-acre buffer zone, or 35 cuerdas, in the Special Planning Area of the Piñones State Forest, and that the Karst Law also protects that land, according to the outlet. Extending the landfill's footprint through a permit renewal, they argue, would instead require an Environmental Impact Statement.
The size of the expansion is itself in dispute. The outlet reported that estimates have ranged from 4.9 to 9.7 acres, and another figure puts it at 7.43 acres. The memorandum says no reliable survey fixes the boundaries of Cell C.
Officials testified that inspections at the landfill take place quarterly, but the Senate has received only four inspection reports, the outlet reported. The record also shows a single groundwater sampling event, from April 2022, which detected arsenic at 0.0220 and 0.0216 milligrams per liter.
The companies say they do not oppose continued operation of the landfill. Their objection is to the expansion into the buffer zone. According to the outlet, the Senate investigation remains ongoing.
The landfill in the property record
The property the landfill's permits point at, on Avenida José Severo Quiñones in Buena Vista, Carolina, covers 1,429,123 m2, about 143 hectares. The Puerto Rico Land Use Plan classes 67% of it as specially protected rural land and the rest as common rural land. Its zoning is resource conservation (CR-1 and CR-2) on 64% of the area, light industry (IL-2) on 17% and agricultural development on 13%, and 73% of it lies in flood zone AE.
The property carries 44 permit filings. The newest are small: an environmental determination for a fire-pump motor at the recycling plant, approved June 19, 2026, and one for an electricity generator beside the weighbridge office, approved May 6, 2026. A use permit for the landfill's administrative offices, filed by the municipality, was approved October 7, 2025. No filing in the record describes an expansion of Cell C or a change to the landfill's footprint.
The land next door
Hacienda Campo Rico is itself a 1,226,696 m2 property, about 123 hectares, classed as specially protected rural land and zoned CR-2 on 85% of its area. The golf academy's use permit for the property, covering farming, the sale of harvested produce, and trails and stables for horses, was approved February 6, 2025 and refiled on August 31, 2026. A categorical exclusion for underground injection systems on the hacienda was approved January 22, 2024.
Few homes are on the market around the site. Within 1.5 km of the landfill property, six houses or lots are listed for sale at a median asking price of $279,450, and no rental is listed.