Opinion ID: 3009773
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Designation

Text: Harvey claims that, in preparing the Plan, the County never considered any out-of-state landfill for designation or allowed any such facility to submit a bid to accept County waste. If supported, these allegations would establish that out-of-state sites did not compete on a level playing field and that the process had the effect of discriminating against interstate commerce. At least some of these accusations are not borne out by the record, however. The County included a description of the Waste Advisory Committee's consideration of alternative sites, one of which was in Baltimore, Maryland, and one in Philadelphia.0 0 Although the county's pre-existing economic interest in the designated landfill creates the incentive for the county to favor these in-state sites in violation of the dormant commerce clause, not every case where the county has an economic stake in the designated site will result in such a violation. The county could, for example, have selected the designated sites in an open, fair and competitive process, and then made investments in improving those sites. The length of the period of designation would, of course, have to be related to the amount of the investment. 0 It is not clear whether the Committee actually considered designating those sites or whether it was simply investigating an alternative method of waste disposal. If the Committee never considered designating those sites, that would increase the impression that the process favored the in-state facilities. 42 But other aspects of the County's process are less reassuring. While the Committee met 13 times to discuss various aspects of the plan and evaluate the alternative waste disposal strategies and facilities (app 23), and while these meetings were supposed to be open to the public, they were advertised in only one small, local newspaper, the Daily Local News. Public hearings to review the draft Plan were held on May 29 and 31, 1990, but there is no reason to believe that those meetings were any better publicized.0 In the end, the Committee selected the two in-county sites that already served as the primary disposal sites for the County's waste. The Pottstown facility was designated as an alternate only after the process was concluded (as the result of two letters and public comment received during the review and comment period). Two factors in particular create the impression that parochialism rather than competition determined the outcome of the designation process: (1) that established local businesses won the designation; and (2) that the Pottstown site was designated as an alternative after the process had concluded -- a status that appears to have been specially created for this situation.