Date: January 12, 2012
Source: News Room
A US District Judge has delayed ruling on the City of Dallas' controversial Flow Control law for 30 days while considering arguments in a complaint filed by the National Solid Wastes Management Association (NSWMA), Waste Management, Inc., and others challenging the measure as violating the city's existing franchise agreements. Last Sept. Dallas City Council passed a measure that requires all haulers collecting waste within the city to take it to the city's McCommas Bluff Landfill or one of the city's transfer stations. In November the NSWMA made good on its threat and filed a federal lawsuit to block implementation of the ordinance which was to take effect Jan. 1. The city later agreed not to enforce it while the matter is pending in court.
At issue before U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor is whether the ordinance violates the city's franchise agreements, reached in 2007, with local waste haulers that gave them permission to haul commercial waste to any state-approved landfill, not just McCommas Bluff. The city argues that it has an obligation and a police power to regulate waste management as a legitimate public purpose and denies that it assigned away its sovereign power to choose the location of waste disposal, as alleged by the plaintiffs, arguing that nothing in its contracts would support such a claim.
James Harris, attorney for NSWMA, said the measure amounts to a revenue grab for the city which is expected to capture $15 million to $18 million from the additional 900,000 tons of waste coming into the city's landfill each year under flow control. He argued against the city's rationale of using flow control to build a green energy center saying that "It's the reverse Field of Dreams . . . If you come, we may or may not build it."
The city sees the plan as an opportunity to enhance its recycling rates and energy recovery, both from increased landfill gas and later from gasifying a portion of the non-recoverable waste. As justification, the city cites the US Supreme Court's 2007 ruling in "United Haulers Association v. Oneida-Herkimer," where the high court upheld flow control for governments that own their own waste facility. In that decision, the Court discussed the extensive benefits of flow control and the public interest involved, the important police powers at issue, the traditional and typical role of government in regulating waste disposal, and the political consideration that the harm of expensive trash removal falls on "the very people who voted for the laws"-meaning that the democratic process itself, and not the judiciary, is the appropriate "restraint" on state action.
See also: "City of Dallas Defends its Waste Flow Control Law," (www.wasteinfo.com/news/wbj20111228B.htm).
See also: "NSWMA Sues City of Dallas over Flow Control Law," (www.wasteinfo.com/news/wbj20111122A.htm).
See also: "All Industry Eyes on Dallas Vote to Impose Flow Control," (www.wasteinfo.com/news/wbj20111004A.htm).
See also: "Dallas to Vote on Controversial Flow Control Measure," (www.wasteinfo.com/news/wbj20110927B.htm).
See also: "Industry Group Urges City of Dallas Not to Use Flow Control," (www.wasteinfo.com/news/wbj20110816F.htm).
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