Port St. Lucie, FL Hurricane Preparedness: Storm Debris (2026)

Sec. 13 applies once solid waste is generated by a declared disaster that is the subject of an emergency order from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) or the City of Port St. Lucie itself. Subsection (a) directs the city to encourage recycling and reuse of disaster debris to the greatest extent practicable, including chipping and grinding vegetative debris for use as ground cover, soil amendment, compost, or combustible fuel, provided the method follows DEP rules or city codes. Subsection (b) authorizes temporary storage and management of debris at staging areas once those areas within the city or St.

Lucie County have been authorized. Subsection (c) sets the disposal paths for vegetative debris handled at a staging area: a permitted lined or unlined landfill, a land-clearing debris facility, a waste-to-energy facility, a construction and demolition debris disposal facility, or a registered yard-trash processing facility. Subsection (d) lets construction and demolition debris that is mixed with other disaster debris go straight to a lined landfill without separation, while source-separated debris can move to a construction and demolition facility, a Class III landfill, or a recycling facility once DEP approves the segregation method.

Subsection (e) allows unsalvageable refrigerators and freezers containing rotting food to go to a permitted landfill, but requires chlorofluorocarbons and capacitors to be removed and recycled first. Subsection (f) lets the city burn disaster-generated yard trash, other vegetative debris, or untreated construction wood in air-curtain incinerators, with the incinerator operator subject to city, Division of Forestry, and DEP open-burning authorization requirements. Subsection (g) commits the city to separating and recycling other materials, including metals and construction and demolition debris, wherever DEP rules and city codes allow.

Sec. 13 was adopted by Ord. No. 07-150, Sec. 1, on November 13, 2007, and sits in Chapter 98, the State of Emergency Management Plan, alongside the hold-harmless provision in Sec. 10 that lets the city enter private and gated communities to remove debris under a right-of-entry agreement.