El Paso To Take Over Disposal Of Commercial Waste In City

El Paso City Council has decided to open the McCombs landfill and take over the disposal of commercial waste in the city.

It’s a move that will cost the city $18.5 million, and will take away a majority of business from Waste Connections, the private company that owns the landfill in Sunland Park, NM, where most of El Paso’s commercial waste goes now. The company had offered the city $2.5 million each year, if council would extend their contract for another 15 years.

Council voted 6 to 2 to reject the contract and begin the process of taking over waste disposal. Representatives Ann Morgan Lilly and Carl Robinson were the only ones who voted against that. Council members heard from several speakers on Tuesday, most who are Sunland Park residents who said the landfill close to their homes had negatively affected their lives.

Maria Lara, a Sunland Park resident, said most of her neighbors had died of cancer and she suspects the Camino Real landfill, owned by Waste Connections, affected their health. Another Sunland Park resident and businessman, Robert Ardovino, also urged council to get rid of the contract. “There are very few people who want it there and those people are very rich… it doesn’t make sense to put trash over our water”, he said.

Taylor Moore, a member of the Sunland Park Grassroots Environmental Group told council he was concerned that the water taken from the American Canal, near the landfill, had negative health affects. He argued the trash is dumped upstream from where much of El Paso’s drinking water comes from.

Representative Steve Ortega asked a representative with the El Paso Water Utilities if they knew of anything that would indicate contamination. John Ballou, with EPWU said they check the water often and “do not see any evidence of any sort of contamination in the water at this landfill.”

The City’s Environmental Services Director, Ellen Smyth, told council she had checked Waste Connections’ history and said their permit was according to law and that the landfill is required by law, to monitor their water and gas levels on a quarterly basis.

Representative Beto O’Rourke said that despite that information, it didn’t make any sense to dispose of trash in the route of our drinking water.

“We are putting our community’s trash in another community,” he said.

Until the city opens the McCombs landfill, El Paso’s commercial waste will continue to go to Camino Real.

“The City Council made the wrong decision today”, said Lee Wilson, with Waste Connections. The company told city representatives that they wanted to be transparent and that extending the contract was not only cost effective, but more environmentally friendly because the city would most likely travel more miles to dispose the trash.

But O’Rourke said the city had to take control of its destiny and others agreed this would be a way for the city to begin looking into clean energy options with waste.