Trial Begins in Global Recycling Suit

Trial began earlier this week in Global Waste Recycling's federal lawsuit alleging that the towns of Coventry and Scituate, both located in Rhode Island, improperly used road restrictions to torpedo the prospective sale of the Global site to the state's solid-waste agency.

The Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corp. in the spring was negotiating to buy Global's operations site in Coventry, which had been closed by court order late last year due to a licensing dispute with the state of Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management. The site was used for processing construction and demolition materials.

Resource Recovery said that it wanted the 98-acre site as a source of gravel for the Central Landfill, in Johnston, RI, but residents of the two towns feared that the property might become another landfill.

The state agency backed away from the deal in June after the Scituate Town Council banned heavy trucking on Hope Furnace Road, along the direct route from Colvintown Road to the Central Landfill, and Coventry officials refused to endorse the Global transaction.

Global filed suit against both towns in September, alleging that the restrictions had resulted in "a total loss or substantial diminution" of the property's value.

Global lawyer Robert Landau asserted that the towns' actions pose an unreasonable burden on interstate commerce, in violation of the Constitution.

"It is readily apparent," Landau said in the suit, "that the Towns of Scituate and Coventry took these actions solely to thwart the sale of the Property to [Resource Recovery] and not to benefit the public's safety, health or welfare."

Coventry officials have maintained that the trucking restrictions on Colvintown Road did not affect the Global operation, but only trucks that sought to travel the full length of the road.

Steven B. Garofalo, an engineer with Garofalo & Associates, of Providence, testified that the ban requires approaches from the south along Knotty Oak Road (Route 116) and Flat River Road. That route, he said, poses more of a traffic hazard.

And William Bettez, who operated a fleet of Peterbilt and Kenworth tractor-trailer trucks that went to the Global site, testified that Knotty Oak Road is less than ideal for big rigs. Providence Journal