A state hearings examiner has recommended that a permit to expand Ferris’ landfill be denied because it constitutes an “incompatible land use” with an adjacent black neighborhood, as well as Lancaster’s city airport. The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission’s Office of Hearings Examiners issued the long-awaited “proposal for decision” last…

The decision whether to grant an expansion permit for a controversial Ferris, Texas, landfill has been delayed several weeks–amid allegations that a state hearings examiner has been pressured to change her recommendation. Waste Management, Inc., the Illinois-based garbage giant, is seeking to expand Ferris’ Skyline landfill from 73 to 667…

Federal auditors are urging the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to terminate longstanding contracts with a Dallas company that operates some of the area’s worst apartment complexes. The company, Pioneer Management, Inc., based in Oak Cliff, ran the Prince Hall Chambre Apartments in South Dallas until November 1…

By 1989, Earline Jackson recalls, the convoys were rumbling down old highway 75, trailing behind them that awful smell. They’d line up at the gate to Skyline Landfill–dozens of trucks from God knows where–dumping ton after ton of trash in the tiny burg of Ferris. Residents of the little town…

The FBI is investigating allegations of public corruption in Ferris involving Waste Management and its consultant, former Ferris mayor Billy Don Dunn. In a nine-page affidavit filed in federal court to establish probable cause to obtain a search warrant for Dunn’s home, Dallas FBI agent James Kendall states that he’s…