Veolia lawsuit accuses Evanston of harassing firm over transfer station

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Evanston, 01/24/12 A Veolia truck leaves the transfer station in Evanston Jan. 24. The company has filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging recent taxes by the city and stepped up inspection efforts are an effort to force them from the city. | Curtis Lehmkuhl~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: February 27, 2012 8:48AM

The city of Evanston has waged “a two-pronged attack” to force Veolia to pull its transfer station from the city, imposing illegal fees and harassing the company through oppressive inspections and other actions, attorneys for the company have charged in a lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed recently in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of Veolia Solid Waste Midwest, alleges that Evanston has taken a number of legislative and administrative actions to force the company’s hand.

Among other things, Veolia officials maintained that despite the company’s “unblemished operating history,” the city has implemented “an oppressive regulatory monitoring and inspection scheme under which a full-time city employee is now primarily dedicated to inspecting the station almost every day and sometimes multiple times on a given day,” though most of the inspections have turned up nothing.

“In comparison,” the lawsuit alleges, “Evanston did not take such actions when the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency cited the city’s own James Park leaf-compost facility, where Evanston residents’ yard waste was taken for composting over 100 times from 1996 through 2008.”

“To Veolia’s knowledge, the city has never before singled out a local business for such disparate treatment,” maintains the lawsuit. ”Indeed, Evanston did not even treat Veolia this way during the company’s first 10 years of operation.”

City to refute claims

Asked about the charges Monday, Grant Farrar, the city’s attorney, suggested the city would strongly refute the claims, in a response due to the court Feb. 23.

Farrar did not get back to the Review with further comment Tuesday.

Veolia has operated a transfer station at 1711 Church St. since July 2000. At the station, garbage collection companies, including Veolia, bring waste collected from businesses and entities operating in Evanston and other cities and villages.

The company spent more than $3.5 million building a new transfer station building and screening wall after it acquired the property, the lawsuit notes.

The lawsuit charges that some of the city harassment followed the development of townhomes in the area, located just east of the Veolia transfer station, in 2006; as well as another developer’s request to remodel an office-condominium building along the station’s southwest side.

After those and other events, the city came under “immense political pressure” to take action against the company, the lawsuit alleges.

Some of the actions included:

• Passage by the city in 2010 of a purported “road-impact fee” targeting only Veolia, according to the lawsuit.

“While a $2-per-ton fee may not sound like much,” the lawsuit states, “it is actually quite significant, causing Veolia losses of over $750,000 through October 2011.”

• An attempt by the city to require Veolia to disclose its confidential customer list.

The city sought the list with the idea of contacting the company’s customers and pressuring them to cease doing business with Veolia, the lawsuit alleges.

• Hiring of a full-time city employee to act as an “Environmental Health Inspector,” primarily dedicated to policing the station.

In the 11 total years Veolia has operated the station, the lawsuit notes, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has inspected the facility many times, resulting in only two minor citations.

Conflict of interest?

• Alleged conflict of interest on the part of the city in its hearings of citations against the company.

The citations go before the city’s Administration Adjudication “court.”

“Under Evanston’s structure, the corporation counsel appoints, supervises and monitors the manager of Evanston’s division of administrative hearings,” the lawsuit notes.

The manager, in turn, supervises and conducts performance reviews of the individual hearing officers.

“In other words, the hearing officers who adjudicate the citations against Veolia report directly to the division manager, who must then answer to Evanston’s corporation counsel, who is personally prosecuting claims against Veolia or having his staff do” the work, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit is asking the court to strike down what the lawsuit contends are illegal fees, and to forbid the city from requiring Veolia to provide a list of its customers.

“Veolia has no interest in being at the center of this political controversy,” the lawsuit states, noting improvements the company has made in recent years.

The improvements include the planting of 50 blue spruce trees on the station’s east side, to improve the view for neighboring property owners. The company also installed a new misting system at the station, designed to decrease odors.

The company has repeatedly contacted Evanston and attempted to work in good faith to address any expressed concerns, according to the lawsuit.

Evanston has rebuffed “each of Veolia’s overtures,” the lawsuit contends, “for reasons that have now become clear — to get rid of the company.”