And the revenue stream might decrease even more, especially if the Tooele facility offers to take garbage at $16 per ton. Hoffman confirmed that Wasatch Regional has been shopping the $16 per ton deal to municipalities across the Wasatch Front.

"It should save money for municipalities," she said.

Patterson said the offer might even be too good for Salt Lake County to pass up. The price is $6 cheaper than the county pays to take garbage to its own landfill.

"If they can charge $16 a ton, it can only benefit the citizen," he said. "If they're going to charge that we might want to get in on that as well."

If the price stands, counties and cities across the Wasatch Front could end up taking their waste to Tooele, rendering many of the some 50 municipal landfill in Weber, Utah, Salt Lake and Davis counties obsolete.

Patterson maintains taking waste to Tooele isn't necessarily a bad thing and could lead to cheaper garbage collection costs for local governments.

"Competition is generally a good thing," he said.

Wasatch Regional has already received approval for a class 1 landfill operation, which means it could accept nonhazardous solid waste from local governments. The class 5 permit they are seeking would allow the facility to receive municipal and commercial waste, notwithstanding waste from out of state, which some senators said they didn't want.

"Our goal is not to make this facility take in out-of-state waste," Hoffman said.

Since the landfill is located on school trust lands, 5 to 9 percent of the facility's gross receipts would help fund public schools.

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