Fred Weber Inc. doesn’t want either of its Oakville trash-transfer station applications to be pitched.

While a trash-transfer station application for the company’s south quarry is being considered by the County Council, Fred Weber Inc. also has filed suit asking for the reversal of the county’s denial of a previous application.

The company filed a lawsuit last week in St. Louis County Circuit Court against the county and the County Council requesting that the denial of its license application for 5219 Baumgartner Road be overturned — contending the county has violated its own Waste Management Code.

The lawsuit alleges that the county illegally enacted a six-month moratorium on the issuance of waste-processing facility licenses — now extended to a 12-month moratorium — which was directed “solely at Weber and the South Transfer Station,” according to a Fred Weber news release.

The “illegal” moratorium was applied only to Fred Weber’s license application, the company alleges, claiming that the county has given “improperly preferential treatment” to Fred Weber’s competitors.

“We think what was done was wrong and that (the lawsuit) was the appropriate legal remedy …,” Gary Feder of Husch & Eppenberger, an attorney representing Fred Weber, told the Call.

Fred Weber is seeking a court order that would force the county to reverse a Department of Health decision, made last fall, to deny the company a license to operate a trash-transfer station at Baumgartner and Old Baumgartner roads in Oakville.

Fred Weber also is requesting a “permanent injunction enjoining and prohibiting the county from continuing to exercise constitutionally offensive conduct which has denied Weber’s rights to due process and equal protection and which has deprived Weber of private property without just compensation,” the release stated.

County councilmen upheld the health department’s denial of Fred Weber’s license application in early May during an appeal hearing, after which the company had 30 days to respond and file suit.

County Counselor Pat Redington said she was unable to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit because she had not had much time to study it when contacted by the Call Monday.

“It’s such a long petition, I’ve only started to review it,” Redington told the Call. “We think we acted appropriately and we are more than willing to defend our position in court.”

Fred Weber simultaneously is seeking a license for a trash-transfer station at 4200 Baumgartner Road inside the company’s south quarry.

The property must be zoned for industrial use before a trash-transfer station could operate within the quarry.

Feder recently sent a letter to county councilmen, asking them to draft legislation regarding Fred Weber Inc.’s rezoning request for its south quarry instead of just letting the proposal die without being considered.

But Councilman John Campisi, R-south county, told the Call he has no intentions of doing so.

Councilmen received and filed a report from the county Planning Commission May 25 — a report that recommends denial of Fred Weber’s request to rezone property in its Oakville south quarry.

The company is attempting to rezone a 24.9-acre tract to the Flood-Plain Planned Industrial District from the Flood-Plain Non-Urban District to construct a trash-transfer station.

The tract is about 300 feet southeast of Baumgartner Road, east of the Burlington Railroad and bounded by the Meramec River to the southwest.

The 6,400-square-foot structure that would serve as the trash-transfer station would be 40 feet tall and made of metal, according to Fred Weber Inc., with a 500-ton daily capacity.

If no councilman requests that appropriate legislation is drafted within 90 days upon receipt of the report, the rezoning request automatically is denied and Fred Weber would have to wait another year before submitting a similar request for that property to the county.

The six-page letter, written by Feder, urges councilmen to conduct their own investigation into the matter because the request “clearly warrants serious consideration by the council for a number of reasons.”

“If the Weber rezoning request for a trash-transfer station within South Quarry is denied, and efforts prevail to bar such a station anywhere in south county, is not the inevitable result that future transfer sites will simply be shifted to other parts of St. Louis County?” Feder stated in the June 1 letter.

“Is the site of the ‘not in my backyard’ battle simply being moved to another location?” the letter continued. “Does not blanket opposition to trash-transfer stations likely assure the proposed expansion of the Sulphur Spring Road Landfill because other, arguably more logical means of dealing with solid-waste management are being ignored?”

Feder also notes that the Department of Health most likely will not make a decision regarding the issuance of a license to Fred Weber for a trash-transfer station on Baumgartner Road until the county makes a decision on the rezoning the request.

“The County Council should not, in fairness to all of St. Louis County, put its head in the sand by refusing to take up the Weber rezoning request during the 90-day period, which began on May 25,” Feder stated.

Campisi told the Call he plans on letting the rezoning request sit for the complete 90-day period — a common practice employed by all councilmen when they do not support a particular request.

“This letter hasn’t changed my mind at all. With all of the things that happened with the health department, the Planning Commission and the continual violations of Fred Weber at the quarry … I just don’t feel that Fred Weber needs a trash-transfer station in south county,” he said.

“I don’t think we’ve ignored any of his correspondence at all. Anything that Fred Weber’s lawyers have asked us to do, we have done. I think enough is enough. It is time for this to just go away … We have received and filed all of their reports. They have asked us to do many things and we’ve done them. Now it’s time to say goodbye,” Campisi added.

Allowing the matter to be denied “simply by inaction,” Feder contends, is not what the council is elected to do on an issue that is so important to all of St. Louis County.

“Certainly Fred Weber Inc. understands that this zoning request is controversial …,” Feder stated in the letter. “Yet even in an election year, we believe the County Council’s commitment to the general health, safety and welfare of the county as a whole is paramount in considering whether to give even an arguably ‘unpopular’ proposal a full and objective hearing.”