Why are the Councils of Governments (COGs) completing the Closed Landfill Inventory?
It is the law. In 1993, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2537, which required COGs to develop and include an inventory of closed municipal solid waste landfills in their regional solid waste management plans. As a first step toward addressing this legislative mandate, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ, formerly the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission) contracted with Southwest Texas State University (SWTSU) to coordinate with the twenty-four COGs in Texas to begin locating known and suspected closed landfill sites. As a result of this initial inventory effort more than 500 sites were identified in H-GACs region. Estimated point locations were mapped for as many sites as possible and available historical information was compiled in a database for H-GAC. As a result of additional legislation in 1999 (Senate Bill 1447), COGs were required to carry the inventory effort to a higher level of detail and precision, where feasible. This detail focused on boun
