By: Lucio S.B. No. 1435
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
1-1 relating to the location of certain solid waste disposal
1-2 facilities.
1-3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-4 SECTION 1. Subchapter C, Chapter 361, Health and Safety
1-5 Code, is amended by adding Section 361.0981 to read as follows:
1-6 Sec. 361.0981. PROHIBITION ON PERMIT FOR TYPE I LANDFILL
1-7 NEAR DRINKING WATER SUPPLY. (a) The commission by rule shall
1-8 prohibit the issuance of a permit for a new Type I solid waste
1-9 landfill or the expansion of such an existing landfill if any part
1-10 of the landfill is to be located within three-quarters of a mile of
1-11 a surface water body used for public drinking water supply or of
1-12 certain open watercourses that drain into such a water body.
1-13 (b) The commission shall use the following criteria in
1-14 determining where Type I solid waste landfills shall not be sited
1-15 in order to protect drinking water supplies:
1-16 (1) where reservoirs, lakes, and other impoundments
1-17 are used for drinking water supplies, the three-quarters of a mile
1-18 siting prohibition, as measured from the perimeter of the water
1-19 body shall be used; and
1-20 (2) where a watercourse including but not limited to a
1-21 river, stream, creek, or channel contains running water for at
1-22 least 90 days per year during years of average precipitation, the
1-23 prohibition shall extend for five miles upstream from a point where
2-1 a surface water body used for public drinking water supply is
2-2 located, and the three-quarters of a mile prohibition shall then
2-3 apply.
2-4 SECTION 2. Where a Type I solid waste landfill exists which
2-5 would be prohibited pursuant to Section 361.0981, Health and Safety
2-6 Code, as added by this Act, and which has received a solid waste
2-7 permit but in which solid waste has not been disposed of by
2-8 September 1, 1993, the provisions of Section 361.0981, Health and
2-9 Safety Code, shall apply, and such landfill shall not be allowed to
2-10 operate.
2-11 SECTION 3. This Act applies to all applications for a permit
2-12 for a solid waste landfill both pending and future, and all
2-13 permitted sections of such landfills where construction has not
2-14 commenced on or before the effective date of this Act.
2-15 SECTION 4. The importance of this legislation and the
2-16 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-17 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-18 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-19 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
2-20 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
2-21 passage, and it is so enacted.