If you listen to our conversations every Thursday morning with City-Parish President Joey Durel, you knew this was coming.

A few months back, Lafayette's City-Parish Council voted to block construction of a waste-transfer station in Lafayette. The site is near a residential area but in a small part of the city that is unincorporated.

Waste Facilities of Lafayette, L.L.C. has thus filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking unspecified damages from Lafayette Consolidated Government for money already spent on the site and for the loss of future income that the facility would have generated.

According to reports, the company has spent nearly $5 million already on the project. Add that in to the projected future earnings and the suit is for about $17 million.

The City-Parish Council was forewarned about the potential for a lawsuit if the project was blocked. When the issue was debated months back, City-Parish Attorney Mike Hebert told the council, "(that) it is my opinion that LCG may not apply a ban on waste transfer stations to the station of Waste Facilities under construction, nor withdraw or revoke its permits, without exposing LCG to substantial liability."

City-Parish President Joey Durel says that since this involves an unincorporated part of the parish, that funds from the parish coffers will be used to defend LCG.

No doubt this is a long way from being over and if the courts have their way, it will cost us,  taxpayers, a whole bunch of money.

Your chance to weigh in? Yeah, it's a "stinky" situation and I am sure if I lived next to a potential waste-transfer station, I wouldn't exactly be thrilled. But legally there were no restrictions for the company to build on this site. Now, our taxes are going to defend something that the City-Parish Council should not have done in the first place. Your thoughts?

More From 97.3 The Dawg