Dallas Files Argument in Court for Flow Control Law

Allan Gerlat, News Editor

June 15, 2012

1 Min Read
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The city of Dallas has filed in U.S. District Court its opposition argument to a potential permanent injunction against its waste flow control law.

In a 59-page filing with the court, Dallas City Attorney Thomas Perkins Jr. said the plaintiffs, led by the National Solid Wastes Management Association (NSWMA), ignore the public health concerns in the ordinance and do not have the rights they assert from the city’s contract clause. The clause does specify the risk of regulatory change for haulers, and the city’s franchises apply only to conduct within the city. Dallas also asserts that the haulers lack standing to benefit from the clause.

In late January Judge Reed O’Connor granted the request by the NSWMA and several private haulers for a preliminary injunction against the law, which Dallas passed in late September to direct all the city’s waste to its McCommas Bluff landfill.

The city appealed the decision at the end of February.

Judge O'Connor said in granting the injunction that the flow control law would substantially hurt the disposal business of the city’s franchised haulers with the loss of landfill revenue, and the higher transportation costs and tipping fees. He also concluded the city enacted the law to raise revenue.

Based on the evidence, O'Connor said in the opinion the "plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their contract clause claim."

NSWMA and several other parties filed suit to block the law after Dallas passed it, saying it is anti-free enterprise and would discourage recycling.

 

About the Author

Allan Gerlat

News Editor, Waste360

Allan Gerlat joined the Waste360 staff in September 2011 as news editor. He was the editor of Waste & Recycling News for the first 16 years of its history, and under his guidance the publication won 27 national and regional awards.

Before Waste & Recycling News, Allan worked at another Crain Communications publication, Rubber & Plastics News, which covers rubber product manufacturing. He began with the publication as associate editor and eventually became managing editor, a position he held for nine years.

Allan is a graduate of Ohio University, where he earned a BS in journalism. He is based in Sagamore Hills, in northeast Ohio.

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