Audio By Carbonatix
Just a few days ago City Manager Mary Suhm explained why the city’s seriously considering an ordinance that would demand all solid-waste collectors dump their trash at city-owned facilities, rather than one of the dozen other landfills in the region. Said Suhm, who’d proposed the idea last year without it getting very far, “Waste will be a resource because you can turn it into energy in the future. Do you want resources your community is producing going outside the community?”
Turns out, that’s more or less the name of a briefing scheduled in front of the city council on Wednesday: “The Green Path from Trash to Treasure,” which was posted last night.
Says the briefing, that methane-capturing system at the McCommas Bluff Landfill is providing around $1.6 million in revenue this year and enough fuel “to heat 25,000 homes each year.” And given what the city says are plans to expand the landfill, why, that heap o’ trash will only create more money and more energy for close to 100 years to come. So it only makes sense, says the city, to demand all waste-dumping take place either at McCommas or the Bachman Transfer Station. Says the briefing, “Half of Dallas’ resource stream is flowing OUT of the city – don’t let it go!”
Hence the presentation of the so-called “waste flow control” ordinance, which would keep all the trash within the city limits and make the city a guesstimated “$13m to $15m annually,” according to the briefing.
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Only, the National Solid Wastes Management Association, which doesn’t want to be told where to dump, insists there are as many negative as positives — among them an increase in traffic to the facilities and “a negative impact on efforts to develop Southern Dallas.” And, they say, an ordinance like that is just damned hard to enforce. Even landfill manager Rick White is worried that using flow control to increase revenue isn’t a good sell, telling city staffers in a November email that “in a city that used to take pride in being business friendly this might not fly as the primary reason to implement flow control.”
From the looks of the briefing, the city manager’s office considers flow control almost a done deal, with 2012 set for implementation.
