Court Opinion

ID: 9626719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:22:18.599922+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:11:30.497272
License: Public Domain

MELTON, Justice,
concurring specially.
In determining whether a proposed solid waste facility is consistent with its Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP), a local government is authorized to consider any relevant factor that it appropriately considered in its SWMP. Murray County v. R&J Murray, LLC, 280 Ga. 314, 315 (627 SE2d 574) (2006). The economic effect of a new facility on a local government’s profits from its own pre-existent *744facility, however, is not such a relevant factor. Under the Georgia Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Act (Act), relevant factors should be those which impede or advance the Act’s explicitly stated goals — protection of public health, safety, or well-being and the quality of the environment. In this case, Murray County abused its discretion to the extent that it based its determination that R&J Murray’s proposed landfill was inconsistent with the SWMP simply because it would create economic competition for the County’s preexisting landfill. On the other hand, Murray County also properly considered the negative environmental impact the proposed landfill would have on Murray County’s highways and wetlands. Because Murray County’s decision to reject R&J Murray’s proposal was not wholly based on economic protectionism, I concur in the judgment of the majority.
The Act was passed specifically for three purposes: (1) to protect the “health, safety, and well-being” of Georgia citizens; (2) to protect the quality of Georgia’s environment; and (3) to create a “comprehensive state-wide program for solid waste management.” OCGA § 12-8-21 (a). The comprehensive state-wide program, in turn, has three stated purposes of its own: (1) to assure that all solid waste does not “adversely affect the health, safety, and well-being of the public”; (2) to assure solid waste facilities do not denigrate the “quality of the environment by reason of their location, design, method of operation, or other means”; and (3) to assure, “to the extent feasible and practical,” maximum utilization is made of the resources contained in solid waste. Id. In other words, the purpose of the comprehensive state-wide program is to assure the goals of the Act — protection of public health and the environment.
In order to further these same goals at the local level, the Legislature required the creation of individual solid waste management plans throughout Georgia localities. OCGA§ 12-8-31.1 (a). “The legislature has provided that solid waste management planning by the State, local governments, and Regional Development Centers within the State is necessary to prevent environmental degradation, to manage resources, and to effectively reduce and manage solid waste for the State and its residents.” DCARule 110-4-3-.01 (3). At a minimum, each local plan must: (1) assure “adequate solid waste handling and capability and capacity within the planning area for at least ten years”; (2) “enumerate the solid waste facilities as to size and type”; and (3) “identify those sites which are not suitable for solid waste handling facilities based on environmental and land use factors.” By requiring localities to identify the needed capacity of solid waste handling, the type of facilities in existence, and suitable areas *745for future solid waste facilities, the Legislature advanced the goals of the Act by forcing localities to currently plan for future waste management needs.
Because local plans are inextricably tied to the Act as the mechanism by which the Act is essentially set into motion, the creation, implementation, and enforcement of such plans must be considered in light of the explicit purposes underlying the Act, namely protection of public health from the accumulation of solid waste and the preservation of the quality of the environment from the effects of solid waste facilities. A local plan should be enforced in a manner to foster these goals, as they form the reason that the local plans were required in the first place.5 The directive of the Legislature is respected if local plans are implemented for these purposes. On the other hand, a local plan should not be enforced to accomplish goals important solely to a local government which have no direct relevance to the public health or preservation of the environment.
In this case, the County explicitly stated that one of the reasons that it refused to certify the proposed facility was because it would create economic competition for the County’s waste management facility, and, in its plan, the County had determined that only it would be allowed to operate any such facility within its borders. In essence, through its local plan and its enforcement, the County argues that it should be allowed to wholly monopolize waste management for 30 years into the future. This reasoning, however, bears no direct relation to the preservation of the quality of environment, as stated in the Act as its goal regarding waste management facilities. To the contrary, it bears only on the fiscal health of the locality and its individual facility, a consideration irrelevant to the underlying goals of the Act. Nothing in the Act or related statutes would authorize or espouse any such monopoly unless perhaps it were absolutely required for the protection of the environment.6 There is no evidence in this case that there was such a requirement. Therefore, the County abused its discretion in considering this factor.
Although such “bare economic protectionism does not further the goals of the Act... and is not a proper basis for denying certification or developing a SWMP,” Murray County, supra at 318, the trial court *746has now made the factual determination that certification was not denied solely for this reason. Instead, the trial court found that Murray County also denied R&J Murray’s request for certification because the construction of its proposed landfill would negatively impact the environment by unduly increasing traffic on a county highway and by causing the filling of wetlands. Both of these bases have a direct relation to protection of the environment, one of the underlying rationales for the Act, and they provide valid grounds for Murray County’s determination that R&J Murray’s proposed landfill was not consistent with the existing SWMP. Accordingly, the trial court properly granted summary judgment to Murray County.
Decided November 21, 2007
Reconsideration denied December 13, 2007.
Gambrell & Stolz, Robert M. Hoyland, Robert G. Brazier, Steven G. Hall, Seaton D. Purdom, for appellant.
Gregory H. Kinnamon, Smith, Gambrell & Russell, Stephen E. O’Day, Christopher J. Bowers, for appellees.

 Indeed, both the Environmental Protection Division and the Department of Community Affairs, the governmental bodies charged with overseeing the implementation of the Act, are charged with the responsibility to “protect the health, safety, and well-being of [Georgia’s] citizens and to protect and enhance the quality of [Georgia’s] environment.” DCA Rule 110-4-3-.03 (2), (3).

 Although a local government may consider “the anticipated impact [a] proposed facility will have upon current waste management facilities,” I do not believe that the Legislature ever intended that the Act could be interpreted to allow individual counties to wholly shut down the free enterprise marketplace for waste management. DCA Rule 110-4-3-.04 (5) (d) (3).