Texas Residents Fight Landfill Expansion

“We just didn’t decide we wanted to be in the landfill business,” says Benavides. “We were told 37 years ago by a geologist that our location was the most suitable place in the state of Texas for a landfill because of the anomaly of clay conditions that exist.”

Benavides says the clay-like conditions here will keep contaminants out of the water table. He claims his remote facility will be safer than the city dump, because that one’s near more Laredo houses.

Standing in the exact middle of where the proposed landfill would sit, it’s nothing but prickly pear cactus and mesquite trees as far as the eye can see—aside from a few roofs peeking out from neighboring ranches. Benavides says his ‘Pescadito Environmental Resource Center’ will provide 45 jobs and meet waste management needs for Laredo, but he plans to bring the waste in on trucks and trains from across Texas, other states, and Mexico.

“It’s location, location, location,” says Benavides. “The No. 1 inland port in the world. I think that the nation and the world are looking at disposal in a very different way, where waste by rail is the future.”