26 years ago, Solano County residents voted to limit the amount of trash coming in from outside the county to 95,000 tons a year. But, county officials never enforced the measure, so a large landfill has been taking in eight to ten times more trash each year than voters allowed.
Environmentalists sued the county and now a judge has ruled Solano must start enforcing the trash limit.
"To assure that every county bares its fair share of the waste burden, as opposed to using one county as the dumping ground for everyone else's trash," explained environmental attorney Stephan Volker.
Solano County gets millions of dollars in taxes from all the trash coming in. The county argued the trash limit violates the commerce clause in the constitution, but the judge disagreed.
The county has not decided whether to appeal.
