Miami-Dade County wants more than $750 million from the company that ran its burnt-down Doral trash incinerator.
In a new lawsuit, the county alleges that Reworld Dade let fire protection equipment fall into disrepair, ignored repeated warnings and left sprinkler water valves closed before a dayslong blaze that destroyed the facility in February 2023.
The county is also suing Reworld’s corporate parent, Reworld Holding Corp. — formerly known as Covanta — which guaranteed the operator’s performance.
The 67-page complaint alleges that Reworld employees closed valves supplying sprinklers around the conveyor where the fire started, even though no repair work required the water to be shut off.
Miami-Dade says one affected system remained closed for about a year.
Reworld previously rejected the county’s account of its performance in a November 2025 letter, blaming Miami-Dade for failing to fund needed upgrades at the aging, county-owned plant.
But according to the Sept. 28 suit, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue issued six notices of violation between October 2019 and September 2022. The county also said that five weeks before the fire, an inspection for the facility’s property insurers warned that impaired protection systems in areas containing combustible material could allow a fire to spread rapidly.
The complaint says at least five systems in the garbage-processing area carried red tags indicating they could not reliably suppress a fire.
Further, the suit includes a minute-by-minute county account of how the conflagration began on Feb. 12, 2023. It says a conveyor stopped at about 1:33 p.m., but its motion alarm did not sound. Flames appeared around 2:10 p.m. and engulfed the conveyor within minutes. Neither the overhead nor lower sprinkler system activated, according to the complaint, and a 911 call was not placed until about 2:16 p.m.
The fire burned for 18 days and ruined much of a facility that handled an average of 3,150 tons of county waste daily. Miami-Dade says the plant had a replacement value exceeding $500 million.
Its claimed losses also include forgone electricity revenue, alternative disposal costs, demolition, cleanup and environmental monitoring.
Miami-Dade is alleging breach of contract, breach of the parent company’s guarantees, gross negligence, fraud in the inducement and violations of its False Claims Ordinance, among nine counts.
It contends that Reworld concealed the extent of the safety problems while obtaining a new operating agreement in October 2022 and seeking payment for its services.
The county wants a jury trial.
“Reworld was responsible for operating and maintaining it, and the allegations in this lawsuit point to serious failures to meet those responsibilities,” Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said. “We are taking this action to recover the damages our County has suffered and protect our taxpayers.”
In its November letter, responding to an earlier county demand, Reworld disputed deficient operations and argued Miami-Dade knew the decades-old facility needed major capital improvements, failed to insure it fully and chose against repairing it after the fire.
Miami-Dade continues to search for a site for a replacement facility, which a July estimate determined would cost $3 billion.