FRESNO - Truck by truck the Blue Ridge Landfill grows everyday. Its owner, Allied Waste, wants to expand it even more.

But three TV stations, including KHOU-TV, now oppose the controversial plan.

Allied Waste asked the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for permission to more than triple the height it can pile trash, from 53 feet right now to 170 feet.

Trash piled that high is what worries TV stations.

"If you put a 200 foot landfill in front of a radar you're going to have problems with coverage and being able to let the radar do its job picking up storms and tracking systems within the Gulf especially, the Galveston area would be affected and all of the whole Houston area would be affected," said KHOU-TV Director of Technology Frank Peterman.

The trash could end up 100 feet higher than the weather radars. Engineers at KHOU‑TV say that will prevent "HD Doppler" from seeing storms and hurricanes to the southeast.

"We're surprised this is the first time the issue has come up," said Gary McCuistion, Allied Waste spokesman.

Allied Waste said neither KHOU-TV nor KTRK-TV and KRIV-TV, also fighting the proposal, ever attended the public hearings on the expansion.

"It's my understanding they weren't notified," said Richard Morrison, environmental attorney representing the Coalition Against Blue Ridge Landfill Expansion. "That's how the process works. If you're a landowner you're supposed to be notified so you have an opportunity to go to the public hearing."

By law, Allied Waste says it only has to notify landowners within 500 feet.

Most of the weather radars are two or three miles away.

So TV stations are taking legal action now, hoping to convince the state to keep Blue Ridge from getting any bigger and potentially blinding the region from approaching storms.