El Paso city council reverses 2010 trash hauling decision; rejects ‘flow control’

El Paso City Council voted on Tuesday to rescind the flow control policy that was approved by a previous council in 2010.

Flow control means that the trash collected in El Paso would end up in El Paso’s landfills. Now, part of the trash goes to the Camino Real Landfill in Sunland Park.

City leaders said then that the additional trash it would get after implementing flow control would lead to more cash that could be re-invested in technology to turn trash into energy.

It intended to work with Fort Bliss as it developed a waste-energy plant on post. Owners of the Camino Real landfill called it a takeover of private business.

In 2010 –and after heated arguments– city representatives voted to implement flow control, and after further negotiations, the program was set to begin on September, 2014.
Tuesday, city representatives agreed to delete flow control from the ordinance with little explanation.

“We didn’t think flow control was appropriate and that was not an initiative we wanted to move forward with,” said City Representative Cortney Niland.

On a separate issue, the city had also considered charging waste haulers a franchise fee, but council voted to scrap the plan. Niland said it, too, “wasn’t in the city’s best interest.”