Port St. Lucie Agrees to $24M Settlement With Former Trash Hauler Waste Pro

Port St. Lucie has agreed to pay $24 million to settle a legal dispute with Waste Pro, its former residential trash hauler — a payout that ranks among the largest municipal settlements in recent Treasure Coast history and that city leaders have offered little public explanation for.

The settlement, first reported by WPBF, resolves a contractual dispute between the city and Waste Pro, the Florida-based waste collection company that held the city's residential solid waste contract before being replaced. The precise legal claims underlying the dispute — whether breach of contract, wrongful termination, or unpaid service compensation — have not been fully disclosed in public-facing documents. Officials said

Port St. Lucie's annual operating budget runs approximately $300 million Officials said, meaning the $24 million settlement represents roughly eight cents of every dollar the city spends in a given year. For a municipality of roughly 230,000 residents, the per-capita cost approaches $105 per household.

City Manager Russ Blackburn Officials said and the City Council have not publicly addressed how the settlement will be funded — whether through reserves, borrowing, or a budget reallocation that could squeeze other services. No special meeting agenda or budget amendment has appeared on the city's public notice board as of this writing.

Waste Pro, headquartered in Longwood, Florida, operated solid waste collection contracts across multiple Florida municipalities. The company drew repeated complaints in Port St. Lucie over missed pickups and service reliability before the city transitioned to a new hauler. Officials said

Whether the settlement contains any admission of wrongdoing by either party — standard in large municipal payouts — remains unknown pending document release.

The TC Sentinel has submitted a public records request to the City of Port St. Lucie for the full settlement agreement, any underlying demand letter, and all City Council communications related to the Waste Pro dispute.

A city spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

This article was generated with AI assistance using publicly available information. It was reviewed and approved by a human editor before publication. TC Sentinel uses AI writing tools in accordance with FTC guidelines.