The fight over a proposed landfill in eastern Travis County spread to the Travis County Commissioners Court Tuesday, but County Judge Sam Biscoe and three of four commissioners didn’t seem interested in joining the fray.

Commissioner Ron Davis made a motion to ban the landfill, which would be built in the Webberville village in eastern Travis County, but the motion died because it did not get a second from the judge or other commissioners.

That maneuvering came after almost two hours of debate on the landfill, which the city of Austin is considering building on 2,853 acres it owns in Webberville. The city also wants to build a power station and wastewater treatment plant in the area.

The county would not have much authority over what’s built on the land unless Davis had been successful in getting commissioners court to change the county code.

The city says the land is big enough and safeguards will be adequate enough to allow those facilities with minimal intrusion on residents in the area.

Residents say they are concerned about the smell, increased traffic and environmental impact of a dump.

“Bottom line - it’s our drinking water and it’ll be seriously negatively impacted if they move forward with any of these plans,” Webberville Mayor Hector Gonzales told commissioners. “Regional landfill, regional wastewater treatment plant, power plant - that’s what the property was originally purchased for. It wasn’t a good idea a quarter of a century ago, it’s not any better of an idea now.”

Gonzales said residents may go to court over the issue.

Residents Claud and Sharon Bramblett also oppose the plant, which would sit on land adjoining their Webberville home.

“To us it’s a very bad idea,” Claud Bramblett said. “I’m bothered by the idea of putting new landfills in at a time when we should be going to recycling, and zero waste burial…For me, it’s not (an argument of) ‘not in my backyard.’ That’s not the issue. I don’t think we should be putting new landfills anywhere, especially now when we have the option to go to very limited burial, very limited waste. We need to be recycling. We need to make that an economically payable scenario, not just throw it away and bury it and live with the poisons that are the consequences.”

Sharon Bramblett said her concerns about smell are secondary to her worries about a negative environmental impact.

She says she’s concerned about “the ecological damage - because they’ll have to tear out much of the old-growth forest that’s in there. They’ll re-sculpt the flood plain. There’ll be trash from the trash trucks all along the roads. The roads aren’t big enough as it is. The bridges definitely won’t take the weight. Everything about it is a concern - the air quality out here will be diminished.”

Other opponents, such as State Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, said putting the landfill in eastern Travis County is almost slap at an area that’s been maligned for years.

“Almost everything that was unwanted has historically been placed in this community,” Dukes said. “We’re not asking for special treatment in east Travis County. We’re asking for equal treatment in east Travis County. . We’re asking there be as much vigor and as much ingenuity in proposing positive economic development, through the tools that are available to the city and county for eastern Travis County as it done in western Travis County and every place, so we have the same opportunity at our American dream.”

The issue was set to be discussed at an Austin City Council meeting Thursday, but Mayor Pro Tem Betty Dunkerley pulled the idea off the agenda Tuesday. She tells KVUE she expects to bring it back up for discussion in several weeks.