TDSL Contract and History with the City of San Antonio

Page Updated Jan. 13, 2026

From 1993 through September 30, 2025, Texas Disposal Systems Landfill, Inc. (TDSL) partnered with the City of San Antonio (City) to provide solid waste disposal services. From 1998 until September 30, 2025, TDSL operated the City-owned Starcrest Transfer Station, and the City was required to annually deliver, or pay for the delivery of a minimum of 100,000 tons of solid waste to TDSL. Unfortunately, several significant operational changes made by the City, coupled with increases in operating costs above and beyond the allowed consumer price index, increased TDSL’s costs while depriving TDSL of expected revenue.  For example, in 2014 the City opened a free citizens’ drop-off center across the expressway from Starcrest, depriving TDSL of anticipated third-party revenue, and then hauled that bulky waste back to Starcrest but paid only the discounted rate for compacted tonnage.  TDSL later learned that this and three other drop-off centers were open to commercial customers and multifamily apartment complexes, which greatly expanded the waste profile beyond residentially-collected waste that qualified for the discounted contract rate.

These unforeseeable actions of the City, combined with other rapidly increasing operational costs resulted in major financial losses to TDSL. For more than ten years TDSL sought to work with the City staff to find a mutually beneficial solution to the problem; however, those efforts were not successful, and TDSL was left with no choice but to litigate the contractual dispute.  The case was tried in September 2025, and while the jury found that the City failed to deliver the required annual tonnage to TDSL, a last-minute re-structuring of the jury charge by the judge prevented the jury from awarding damages.  The Court has not yet entered a final judgment, and we strongly believe that several material errors in the charge and throughout trial will result in the case being re-tried.

Contract

Litigation

2023 Request for Proposal for Solid Waste Delivered Directly to Landfills
(not through the Starcrest Transfer Station)

Articles

Book Excerpt

Los Angeles Waste Hauling Franchise System

 

Waste Management of Texas, Inc.

In 1997, following Waste Management’s publication of false statements about TDS and its landfill, TDS sued Waste Management for defamation and other claims. In 2010, a jury found in favor of TDS and awarded $5.45 million in actual damages and $20 million in exemplary damages, finding that Waste Management had knowingly published false and defamatory statements about TDS and its Creedmoor, Texas landfill in 1997 after TDS received approval from the San Antonio City Council, but before the contract was signed for a 30-year landfill disposal and transfer station contract, and during the decision making process for a City of Austin 30 year disposal and recycling services contract. Learn more here:

Waste Management of Texas, Inc.

Articles – Waste Management of Texas Lawsuit