By BJ Austin, KERA News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-992569.mp3
Dallas, TX – The controversy over where to dump the trash in Dallas flares up again this weekend. KERA's BJ Austin reports.
Students from Paul Quinn College oppose the city's new plan to route all commercial trash collected within the city limits to the McCommas Bluff Landfill - about a mile from campus. Tomorrow they'll march from Oak Cliff Founders Park to Ferris Plaza in downtown Dallas.
Paul Quinn President Michael Sorrell says the march is about more than increased garbage-truck traffic in the neighborhood. He says it's about south Dallas being left out of the planning process at City Hall.
Sorrell: Ah, you would never have seen this in Lakewood. You would never have seen this in Preston Hollow. But yet, the folks in southern Dallas are asked to accept that failure to have a community development plan is okay. Piecemeal policy making is supposed to be okay.
Councilman Tennell Atkins says there was plenty of input from the landfill neighbors.
Atkins: We had numerous town hall meetings, the public hearing. We got community interest coming back together. I think we did the right thing. We're going forward.
City officials say requiring all commercial waste to be routed to McCommas Bluff will generate about 18 million dollars in year in additional dumping fees. And will set the stage for a large, state-of-the-art recycling facility. Paul Quinn students says that doesn't help the immediate neighborhood, which doesn't even have a grocery store.