TOPEKA — The Kansas Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, that the Board of County Commissioners of Sumner County and a public interest group, Tri-County Concerned Citizens Inc. (TCCCI), have standing to pursue their case against the Waste Connection Inc. (WCI), landfill in Harper County.
    Sumner County, along with TCCCI sued WCI and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) in 2005 and alleged KDHE had failed to consider aspects of the site that make it environmentally unsuitable for a landfill.
    A geohydrologist’s report done on behalf of Sumner County commissioners, found numerous deficiencies in the site that made contamination of groundwater under it more likely to occur.
    The Plumb Thicket landfill opened in 2006 and is built on 229 acres owned by WCI in northeastern Harper County. The Chikaskia River is 1.7 miles northeast of the landfill site at its closest point. Surface water and groundwater flows southeast from the landfill. According to KDHE reports, the distance to the river is approximately three miles.
    The Supreme Court’s ruling acknowledged Sumner County and TCCCI had participated in KDHE hearings prior to the issuance of the permit and that both had legally recognized interested to protect water aquality. The case will now go back to the Shawnee County District Court for a determination of whether KDHE should have issed the landfull permit.
    The decision does not affect on-going operations at Plumb Thicket Landfill, which takes much of the trash generated in Wichita.
    But it leaves ajar the door for a worst-case scenario for Waste Connections in which the landfill could be ordered to take remedial steps or even to close.
    If that occurred, it would be  “because there has been a determination by the courts that the claims that we are making are valid —that contamination is likely to occur," Robert Eye, a Topeka attorney representing Sumner County commissioners and Tri-County Concerned Citizens told reporters after Tuesday’s decision.