Countywide : Appellate Court Upholds Landfill Fees for Schools

A state appellate court has upheld Orange County’s right to impose fees on school districts for each ton of trash they dump in the county’s four solid-waste landfills.

A unanimous three-judge Court of Appeal panel in Santa Ana found that the county has the authority to impose the fees on 34 school districts and regional occupational programs in the county.

In a concurring opinion, however, Justice Thomas F. Crosby Jr. pleaded with the county to exempt the schools, saying an “enlightened county . . . would do everything possible” to ease the burden on financially strapped school boards.

The decision, released Wednesday, is the last challenge the county faces to a fee schedule that now generates up to $20 million and pays all the bills for operating the landfills, said Deputy County Counsel Benjamin P. de Mayo.

The districts, which claim the fees cost them some $500,000 a year, will review the decision over the next few weeks to decide if they will appeal, said Ricki Cameron, risk manager for the county Board of Education, which is spearheading the court action.

Until 1982, operating costs for county solid waste disposal sites and transfer stations were paid from the county’s general fund. Increased volume drove costs up and forced the county Board of Supervisors to adopt a fee schedule, effective in October, 1982, at all landfills and transfer stations.

The school districts and regional occupational programs filed suit in February, 1983, claiming that two state laws were inconsistent and that one of them required the county to accept their solid waste at its disposal sites for free.

The Garden Grove Sanitary District and others also sued, attacking the legal ability of the county to impose fees without amending its solid waste management plan.