🌅 🛒 Trader Joe’s Is Coming

It's Friday! What a week. I’m glad we made it to the end, and thank you for sticking with through the flooding, the election, and everything that came after. I’ve been doing these election breakdowns (watch here), so if there’s something specific you want me to cover, just reply to this email and let me know.

👁️ Caught my eye: Applications for Port St. Lucie’s flood relief opened yesterday. You can learn more here.

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🌅 Things To Do: Check out yesterday’s event list here!

☀️ Day: High of 84°F | Partly sunny with a couple of showers. 84% chance of rain.
🌙 Night: Low of 69°F | Mostly cloudy. Winds S at 2 mph. 5% chance of rain.
🌅 Sunrise: 6:35 AM | 🌇 Sunset: 5:35 PM
🌙 Moonrise: 4:06 AM | 🌚 Moonset: 3:50 PM
🎶 Sounds like: "For the Love of You" — The Isley Brothers

Who is pushing for Miami’s trash to keep coming to Fort Pierce? That is the question behind a new story I wrote with Robin Cartwright of Martin County Press, and here is the short version. 🗑️

In 2023, Miami-Dade County’s waste to energy facility burned down. Since then, Waste Management has been shipping 2,500 tons of trash a day from Miami to the rail yard near downtown Fort Pierce, where it gets loaded onto trucks headed to a landfill in Okeechobee. Fort Pierce’s own transfer station handles up to 150 tons a day, so the Miami trash completely dwarfs what the city needs for its own waste. Neighbors have told the City Commission about rats making their way downtown, along with concerns about airborne illnesses from all the excess debris.

Why is it still happening? 🚆

Taking the trash was supposed to be a short term fix after the fire, and it has been three years. In July 2026, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the cost of a new plant had climbed to $3.16 billion, more than $1 billion over earlier projections. Miami-Dade commissioners also rejected a $14 a year garbage rate increase that would have helped fund it, and nobody has agreed on where a new facility would go. Miami-Dade does still have some room at the South Dade Landfill, but landfill height and footprint limits restrict how much it can take.

Miami-Dade signed an emergency contract with Waste Management, which owns the Okeechobee Landfill. Since that landfill has no direct rail line from Miami, Waste Management uses the Florida East Coast Railway, and Fort Pierce is the closest spot to move the trash from trains to trucks. In 2025, FEC filed a lawsuit against the City of Fort Pierce over debris along the tracks near Indian River Drive, arguing the city did not have jurisdiction.

The emails 📧

On October 19, 2026, Derek Hankerson, a constituent services representative and district aide, emailed Fort Pierce City Manager Richard Chess. He wrote that the issue relates to the Doral transfer station and a push to have it moved out of Miami, and that “basic search will reveal the real culprits.” His email included a link to a WLRN article reporting that the Miami-Dade mayor scrapped her plan for a new trash burning facility in Doral.

Six minutes later, Hankerson sent a second email forwarding an update from FEC on its planned intermodal ramp in Fort Pierce. In it, FEC says permits are pending, names St. Lucie County as the biggest factor slowing the timeline, and estimates construction could begin as early as the second quarter of 2027 if approvals wrap up by the end of this year. You can read the full email here.

None of the communications address the bigger issue, which is that Miami-Dade still has no facility to handle its daily waste and the temporary solution is now three years old with no end date.

What’s next ⏭️

As we previously reported, the Fort Pierce City Commission approved its final $1.65 million local waste expenditure with Waste Management through March 2027 and said it will not renew the contract. City leaders are now collecting bids from other landfill operators in St. Lucie and Indian River counties.

Sunland News and Martin County Press will keep following this story together.

👉 Read the full article here, including the history of trash in Fort Pierce going back to 2006

Filthy's Fine Cocktails & Beer on 16th Street closed Nov. 4 after 19 years, and owners Angela and Nick Novak plan to reopen Nov. 13 with a new name and concept. Angela says the couple is stepping into a new chapter with a concept that better serves the community, but they're keeping details under wraps. The new bar won't have a Western theme or be tied to Overpass Arena.

👉 Read more (TCPalm subscription may be required)

Trader Joe's plans to open a Vero Beach store in 2027, one of six new Florida locations planned for next year. The company usually posts new locations on its store finder once the lease is signed and permits are underway. Residents in Port St. Lucie and Fort Pierce can request a store on the company's website, though Trader Joe's says it mostly weighs growth, parking, population and traffic flow.

👉 Read more (Instagram)

Heavy rain overloaded the FPUA's Indian River Water Reclamation Facility, which led to the release of about 5.6 million gallons of treated, chlorinated effluent into the Indian River Lagoon from the plant's outfall. Officials say the discharge was de-chlorinated and that they hoped to stop it by the morning of Nov. 6. The incident was filed as a public pollution notice with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

👉 Read more (Facebook)

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