The Latest Expansion Plan

by Susan Watkins

4/30/2012 8:51:39 PM

9/7/12 at 2:32:06 PM

Waste Not and the Stop the Dump Coalition are not giving up.  But neither is Waste Management.

For four years, we have been trying to persuade Waste Management to close Riverbend Landfill on schedule when it reaches capacity in 2014.  But Waste Management (WMI) continues to devise new schemes to keep the landfill open.

In 2008, WMI convinced the County planners and Board of Commissioners (over the Planning Commission's objection) to approve a plan that would have quadrupled dump capacity.  The new Mount Trash would have dwarfed downtown Portland!  We successfully sidetracked that effort, but WMI came roaring back.

Last September, WMI and the Board of Commissioners amended the County Zoning Ordinance (again over the Planning Commission's objection) to allow landfills on Exclusive Farm Use lands -- the best farm land in the United States.  But given the huge volumes of waste WMI imports from Portland Metro and other parts of the state, the dump will fill up before the 60-acre expansion WMI wants can be engineered and approved by DEQ.

So WMI proposed to build a wall, called a "mechanically stabilized earth" berm, around most of the dump.  This 40-foot-high wall would enable WMI to keep Riverbend open long enough to get permits for the expansion it really wants.

The trouble was, part of the proposed berm would encroach into the floodway of the South Yamhill River, a no-no under federal law.  So WMI took that berm off the table and replaced it with a "mini-berm" proposal -- a wall on the Highway 18 side of the dump.

If approved, the mini-berm will keep Riverbend open until 2018 -- long enough to prepare plans for the big expansion that would keep trucks rolling through our small towns for another 25 years.

We are fighting the mini-berm at DEQ right now (fall 2012).  DEQ would have approved it long ago if not for courageous and knowledgeable neighbors who pointed out that the dump sits on soils that are likely to liquefy in the next big earthquake.  With funds donated by supporters like you, Waste Not has hired engineers to investigate the earthquake stability of the berm.  We are also funding a lawsuit by neighbors of the dump who were never notified by Yamhill County of its intent to approve the berm.

Thanks to your vocal support at WMI's "community meetings" and your letters to officials and the newspapers and of course your donations, we will keep fighting.

Close Riverbend Landfill!  Stop the Dump!