The Senate approved legislation Tuesday that prevents public entities in Utah from telling waste-management companies where to dump the commercial trash they handle.

Currently, municipalities, counties and special service districts can enact "flow-control" ordinances directing private companies to take the trash they collect to a landfill owned by the public entity.

Senate Bill 46, sponsored by Sen. Dan Eastman, R-Bountiful, prohibits such policies, with some exceptions.

The change would open the door for private companies to dump their commercial waste at landfills of their choice. Two large companies, Allied Waste and Metro Waste, own landfills in the state.

"The free market keeps competition honest and it keeps prices low, and this bill seeks to do that exact thing," Eastman said. "I don't think cities or counties need to be spending huge amounts of tax dollars to buy real estate for new landfills."

The proposal has been met with fierce opposition from municipal landfill officials and some smaller private operations, who said it would allow private firms to develop waste-management monopolies over the long term, and could drive up dumping, or "tipping" fees for residents.

"Utah has the lowest average tipping fees in the United States," said Craig Hall, general counsel for the majority of municipal landfills along the Wasatch Front. "This bill, in the long-term, will ensure that Utah will no longer maintain that position."

Proponents of the measure say it could actually lower prices by introducing free-market competition.

"It's ironic that opponents are saying this will create a monpolistic atmosphere, when the whole purpose of this bill is preventing local entities from having monopolistic control over waste," said Mike Lee, an attorney for Allied Waste. "A vote for this bill protects the local economy from government monopolization."

Hall said prohibiting flow-control ordinances could make it difficult to create new municipal landfills in the future.

The inability of entities to guarantee a revenue stream would prevent them from getting the bonds needed to finance new landfills, he said.

The bill has been modified to include exemptions for some municipal landfills, including the Wasatch Integrated Waste Management District, the Davis County entity that operates a landfill and incineration plant east of Layton.

Wasatch Integrated currently has the only flow-control ordinance in the state. The district has a contract to provide Hill Air Force Base with energy produced by burning waste at the landfill.

The bill exempts the Davis landfill and burn plant from the restriction until 2013.

Nathan Rich, executive director and chief executive of the district, said the landfill needs a guaranteed waste stream in order to meet the terms of the contract and provide services to residents that the private landfills don't offer, such as recycling and disposal of hazardous household waste.

Getting rid of its flow-control ordinance would reduce its revenue by as much as $2.5 million annually, which could negatively impact some of the free and reduced-cost programs the district offers residents, he said.

While the five-year exemption is a welcome change, he said some provisions of the bill still concern local waste-management officials.

The bill allows some public entities to implement flow control, but only if they are more than 50 miles from a privately owned landfill, transfer station or other solid waste management facility.

That essentially excludes all of the Wasatch Front, Rich said.

"To say we're all on board with this is not entirely accurate," he said. "Small haulers are concerned too, because this benefits large companies that own landfills."

Issa Hamud, Logan City environmental manager and a board member for the Northern Utah Regional Landfill Association, said the group has not discussed implementing flow control as it develops plans for a new landfill in Box Elder County.

Hamud said that while the bill has improved during the process, the 50-mile distance requirement from private landfills is troubling.

"It still limits the ability of cities and counties to do what they need to do," he said.

The Senate voted 25-1 to approve S.B. 46, which now heads to the House. The lone dissenting vote came from Sen. Karen Mayne, D-Salt Lake City.

Senate Bill 46, Anti-Flow Control Amendments

Sponsor: Sen. Dan Eastman, R-Bountiful

This bill would amend the Solid Waste Management Act.