Commonwealth Court this week issued a decision saying the $4/ton Growing Greener fee does not apply to alternative daily cover used by landfills. The case involved a challenge to the fee by Joseph J. Brunner, Inc. which owns a municipal waste landfill in Beaver County, and its use of foundry sand as daily cover.

The Court said the 2002 law establishing the fee has a clear exemption in it for alternative daily cover in 27 Pa.C.S. Section 6301 that says “process residue and nonprocessible waste that is permitted for beneficial use or for use as alternative daily cover at a municipal waste landfill.”

DEP had argued the exemption only applied to materials coming from a resource recovery facilities, however, the court disagreed and said the plain language of the section provides the exemption.

DEP has not yet decided to appeal the decision.

3/18/2005