Philly, Pittsburgh officials hope to join suit against landfill tipping fees
Government officials from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia apparently have expressed interest in joining the lawsuit that local leaders filed seeking to declare as unconstitutional the $4 landfill tipping fees that the state Legislature approved to help balance the state budget. Additionally, state Rep. Larry Roberts (D-South Union Twp.) introduced legislation this week to eliminate the effects that the tipping fees will have on municipalities’ garbage contracts.
The city of Uniontown joined with North Union and South Union townships to sue the state, the state Department of Environmental Protection and DEP Secretary David Hess.
The two townships entered into a five-year agreement with CBF Inc. of McClellandtown in 1999, locking in a monthly residential user rate of $6.45. Earlier this year, the townships voted to extend the agreement another five years, until Sept. 2009, with the stipulation that any rate increase would not be negotiated until the beginning of the second five-year period.
Uniontown handles collection as a municipal service, but the city also entered into a five-year landfill disposal agreement with CBF in April that outlined costs for accepting waste from the city garbage trucks.
At Wednesday’s South Union Township supervisors’ meeting, attorney Jack Purcell with the law firm of Davis and Davis, which filed the suit on behalf of the three local municipalities, reported that while he’s received no official or unofficial word on the suit, officials from eastern communities, including Philadelphia, have called expressing an interest in joining the suit.
South Union Township Supervisor Thomas Frankhouser said Pittsburgh government leaders have been in touch with the township office, expressing the same interest. Fellow Supervisor Robert Schiffbauer added that state Sen. Richard Kasunic (D-Dunbar) also opposes the measure.
Signed into law June 29, the Waste Transportation Safety Program imposed a $4-per-ton fee on all waste disposed in a landfill and a $100 fee per truck used to collect and dispose garbage at landfills. The law also allows the landfill owner to pass the fee on to residential customers, which is the center of the local officials’ lawsuit.
The local leaders have said that by allowing the landfills to pass on the increase, the state essentially has placed another unfunded mandate on counties and municipalities.
Frankhouser said that when he talked to Roberts about the increase, the lawmaker was unaware that the municipalities would be affected.
“He said he didn’t fully read it and thought that it was for out-of-state haulers,” Frankhouser said.
“That’s what can happen when we do not have sufficient time to hear from our constituents on legislative matters,” Roberts said in a release regarding the bill he introduced this week.
According to Roberts, his legislation would allow municipalities under contract to be exempt from garbage rate increases until their contracts expire.
North Union Township Supervisor John Mateosky welcomed the news.
“Good. I am glad to hear it, and I hope he does well by us, but if not, the suit is already filed,” Mateosky said. “We have no problem but that our contract is binding. We had no problem so long as the state doesn’t interfere. …We can’t blame CBF. The money isn’t going to them. It’s going to the state. CBF had no choice but to pass the increase on to our residents. They were compelled by law.”
Mateosky said he feels confident in the lawsuit’s chances: “Davis and Davis said we have a 60-percent chance, and that’s good enough for me.”
According to Purcell, “The case will be won or lost on the issue…if the state can meet the burden of identifying the public need for such a legislative service.”