Opinion ID: 3009773
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Escape Valves: Amendment

Text: 0 Of course, if the County can demonstrate on remand that the relevant out-of-state market participants knew about the designation opportunity anyway -- and perhaps word of such proposals travels quickly through the trade grapevine -- that would rebut the evidence about the lack of adequate publicity and tend to show that the process was open. Similarly, if the County could demonstrate that the publication was a specialized trade journal which effectively notified the relevant market participants despite its relatively small circulation, that would also refute evidence that the bidding process was closed. 43 The capacity to amend the Plan in order to add additional sites does not appear sufficiently to mitigate the effect of having chosen the established in-state interests. If the amendment process were open and fairly liberal, it could conceivably save the initially discriminatory effect of home cooking. But the amendment process in Chester's Plan is quite constrained: additional sites can only be designated if the existing facilities have insufficient capacity, are unable to obtain expansion permits, develop unforeseen environmental problems which preclude continued use of those facilities, or are subject to regulatory changes which affect their capacity or preclude their continued use. See Chester County Selection and Justification of Municipal Waste Management Program § 6.3.4. The prospect that an out-of-state site could gain designation through the amendment process is too remote to equalize the opportunity for out-of-state businesses, which were initially shut out, to participate in the local waste disposal market. There were, moreover, indications that the Committee had no intention of designating additional facilities. First, one of the Committee members wrote to the DER specifically requesting guidance on whether the County was obligated to review each request formally since it did not wish to designate additional disposal facilities at this time. Second, the Authority had covenanted in the 1990 bond indenture not to construct, acquire or operate any waste processing plants, 44 structures, facilities or properties which would compete for revenues with those already designated by the Authority.0