Dec 13, 2002 By Jennifer Harr 3 min read

If officials from North Union and South Union Townships and the City of Uniontown win their battle to stop a state-imposed landfill tipping fee, those fees will be refunded to landfills taxpayers. An order to that effect was entered Thursday in Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg, with the agreement of an attorney for the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), said attorney James T. Davis, who represents elected officials who filed the lawsuit.

The suit, filed in September, seeks to stop the state from charging $4-per-ton landfill tipping fees for trash disposal.

Davis recently filed a motion for preliminary injunction to ensure that, if the suit was successful in stopping the fees, the money collected after the filing of the suit would be refunded.

“Our goal was to achieve some sense of comfort that if we prevailed that (the state) in turn would refund (the money) to the generators – the taxpayers,” said Davis.

The suit is in response to the Waste Transportation Safety Program, which imposes the $4-per-ton fee on all solid waste disposed in a landfill and a $100 fee per truck used to collect and dispose garbage at landfills. The state signed that program into law on June 29.

The law also allows the landfill owner to pass that fee on to residential customers.

This July, the garbage carrier for the townships sent letters to residential and business customers that said the fee forced a 50-cent monthly increase in collection rates.

Because CBF Inc. was already under contract with the townships, Davis previously said that the state is giving the company the power to change its existing contract. Thus, the suit asks that the Commonwealth Court declare the Waste Transportation Safety Program unconstitutional because it breaks contractual obligations and is a non-uniform tax under the guise of fees.

South Union Township supervisor Robert Schiffbauer, who went to Harrisburg for Thursday’s hearing, called the decision a positive step in their challenge to the tipping fees.

He said the first major step was taken when the Commonwealth Court decided to take the case and scheduled the hearing for the injunction.

“I don’t think the state wanted the court to issue an injunction, so in their concern, they decided to secure the money so that if we, in fact, win those fees will get paid back,” he said.

Schiffbauer said a representative from the City of Pittsburgh attended the hearing because the tipping fees have a greater effect on the second-largest city in the state than the three Fayette County municipalities that have filed suit against the state.

“We’ve gone further than we thought and we have caused a stir throughout the state, and this has given us a sense of what might happen down the line,” he said. “This was one little battle we prevailed in, but the war is certainly not decided as of yet.”

While Davis said he could not be certain how long it would take the case to be resolved, he said it could be as soon as early to mid-2003.

In addition to getting consent from the state’s attorney, Davis said landfill owners also consented as part of the court order.

Additionally, officials in Derry Township, Dauphin County and the Pennsylvania Landfill Association have been named as interveners in the suit, which means that they support the position of officials from North and South Union and Uniontown.

Davis estimated that the fees will generate yearly revenue of $50 million statewide.

“And that’s a conservative estimate,” he said.