Dive Brief:

• An amendment offered to Guadalupe County, Texas, by Waste Management may yield more than $400,000 in concessions

• The waste company will issue 4% in royalties on dumping fees in exchange for the county remaining neutral on its permit application to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for the proposed expansion of the Comal County landfill

• The contract the county signed in 2007 with Waste Management left the county without payment due to ongoing litigation, but a judge recently reviewed the contract and pursued payments from Waste Management.

Dive Insight:

The 2007 contract stated that the county would only collect payments when "Waste Management received notice of TCEQ's final and nonappealable approval of the proposed permit." The judge determined that the ongoing lawsuit did not affect similar payments made by the waste company. Commissioners voted unanimously to remove the permit issuance trigger, which resulted in quarterly payments resuming in January.

The contract still contains many loopholes that benefit Waste Management, which may still manage to get out of paying royalties, although the county attorney does not want to negotiate a revision.