by Susan Watkins
The Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Committee has issued its draft report calling on strengthening Oregon's infrastructure to withstand a magnitude 9.0 Cascadia earthquake. Yamhill County is set to run an earthquake preparedness trial with FEMA funding based on the 9.0 event. So why is DEQ stuck at 8.5?
As you may recall, Waste Management asked DEQ's permission to build a 40-foot high barrier on the Highway 18 side of the dump. This wall will allow the landfill to collect another 1,000,000 tons of garbage and stay open an additional two years, through 2016. The Stop the Dump Coalition and others have called on DEQ to use the 9.0 standard in evaluating the proposed wall, but DEQ has so far refused.
It's not that people don't know the coming subduction zone quake will be at least that big--as big as the Tohoku quake that hit Japan two years ago. The rest of Oregon's government is intently focused on preparing for an earthquake that large. But Waste Management has modeled its wall based on an 8.5 event and doesn't want to build it stronger.
DEQ has met with DOGAMI, the state's Department of Geology and Mineral Industries--our local earthquake experts--and still hesitates to move up to 9.0. Now the EPA has said it will invite DEQ and DOGAMI to meet with EPA representatives to discuss the matter. And several elected officials have begun to take an interest in the issue.
Will we get a safe landfill? Probably not -- the one we have leaks, and no one is investigating the soils under the existing garbage heap. But if Waste Management can persuade DEQ to stand tough and insist on using 8.5 for the wall, then when the company returns with plans for its proposed 60-acre expansion, it can point to precedent to use 8.5 to assess that expansion, too.
Then we will really be in trouble.
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