1995

Cities of Denison, Gainesville, and Sherman held discussions to determine if there was a collective interest in beginning the process of permitting and operating a solid waste recycling and disposal facility.

1996

Biggs and Mathews, EMCON, and HDR were hired as the engineering consultants tasked with establishing a process for evaluating properties that were economically and environmentally suitable for a municipal solid waste facility.

A process was established that included a Citizen's Advisory Committee, Technical Advisory Committee, and a Political Advisory Committee.

The Citizen's Advisory Committee (CAC) consisted of interested citizens from the area communities. By conducting public meetings, the CAC was able to provide the citizen's perspective to the political leaders.

The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) consisted of the City Managers, City Attorneys, Director of Public Works, City Engineers County Officials, and the Consulting Engineers. The TAC established the technical criteria for the evaluation of potential properties and later provided the technical design parameters for the landfill permit design. Based on input from the TAC, the engineering consultants established a Design Basis Memorandum (DBM) that established the basic engineering design of the facility.

The Political Advisory Committee (PAC) consisted of the elected officials of the entities comprising TASWA, the cities of Denison, Gainesville, Sherman, Cooke, and Grayson counties. The PAC served as a liaison between the entities they represented, TAC and CAC.

1999

Kerry Russell, now of the Law Firm of Russell & Rodriguez, was retained as legal counsel for the TASWA facility permitting effort. He led the combined legal efforts for the permitting process culminating in the issuance of a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Permit on October 31, 2003.

The tracts of land that make up the TASWA property were purchased.

The engineering firm of Biggs and Mathews was retained to prepare a permit application, serve as the engineer-of-record, and ultimately to prepare the engineering plans and specifications for the initial construction of the facility. They also served as the construction manager for the initial cell construction and for the continuation of the entrance and operational facilities.

2000

Dale Sissney was hired on July 6, 2000 as General Manager. He now serves as the Executive Director of TASWA

Site characterization activities including the drilling of geotechnical borings and installation of groundwater piezometers, evaluation of wetlands, archaeology, surface water drainage, endangered species, traffic and all studies necessary for the preparation of the permit application took place during 2000.

Arturo Rodriguez was retained as the General Counsel for TASWA.
2001

The permit application was submitted to TCEQ in December 2000. Following a comprehensive series of TCEQ reviews, the application was declared Technically Complete on November 14, 2001.

2003

A contested case public hearing was held in Austin in January 2003. Following the legal arguments, the Commission (TCEQ) issued MSW Permit No. 2290 on October 31, 2003.

2004

Bids were accepted for the construction of the facility on June 1 and August 23, 2004. The project was awarded to Rodman Excavation, Inc. as the Primary General Contractor and the BJ Company as the General Contractor for the entrance facilities.

Construction began in June 2004.

2005

The landfill construction was completed and the landfill accepted its first load of waste on April 11, 2005. TASWA dedicated the opening of the facility on April 20.