Tulsa councilors raise fears of green-waste lawsuits
By ZACK STOYCOFF World Staff Writer on Aug 16, 2013, at 2:23 AM Updated on 8/16/13 at 5:29 AM
Trash
Approaching the one-year anniversary of Tulsa’s curbside recycling program, city officials say they are pleased with how residents have embraced the program even though they acknowledge that things haven’t always gone as planned.
Experts say cities nationwide have found simple and environmentally friendly ways to dispose of yard waste, but few of them would be practical in Tulsa, the city's trash operators say.
City councilors said Thursday that they fear the city's green waste controversy may have left the city vulnerable to lawsuits.
"The concern is for the person who could have put green waste into their trash can and sent it to the incinerator ... but instead paid the extra thinking it was going to the green waste site and instead it went to the incinerator," Councilor G.T. Bynum said.
The Tulsa World reported last week that yard waste picked up at residents' curbs has been taken exclusively to the city's trash incinerator since at least January because equipment at the city's green waste mulching plant cannot remove the plastic bags in which residents are asked to place the material.
The city has still required residents to affix those bags with a 50-cent "green waste" sticker.
Councilor Blake Ewing said he can envision legal objections from "people who are environmentally concerned" - not just from those upset over being charged for the service.
Some studies have shown that burning yard waste has environmental drawbacks.
If such people had known that their yard waste was being burned, "they might have chosen because of those personal values to compost in their own back yard or to transport the waste to the green waste facility on their own," Ewing said.
"You guys that are lawyers know better than me, but when people pay for something related to a personal value like that, it seems like they could make the case that that act was injurious to their principles."
Councilors had asked to go into a closed-door executive discussion to discuss potential liability related to the green waste program, but Senior Assistant City Attorney Mark Swiney said the Legal Department could see no reason to do so because residents still had their yard waste removed.
The state's Open Meeting Act allows executive sessions "concerning a pending investigation, claim or action."
"The fact that the waste went one place when everybody was expecting it to go some place else, that's embarrassing and you might even say it's a scandal, but we don't see any liability," Swiney said.
Zack Stoycoff 918-581-8486
zack.stoycoff@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Green-waste fallout envisioned
Trash
Approaching the one-year anniversary of Tulsa’s curbside recycling program, city officials say they are pleased with how residents have embraced the program even though they acknowledge that things haven’t always gone as planned.
Experts say cities nationwide have found simple and environmentally friendly ways to dispose of yard waste, but few of them would be practical in Tulsa, the city's trash operators say.
