What Next?

Now that the Stop the Dump Coalition's appeal of Yamhill County's decision to rezone the dump as farmland has been formally dismissed by the Land Use Board of Appeals, you might be wondering, "What next?"  As it turns out, plenty!

According to press reports, Waste Management (WM) will be filing its expansion request with the County and the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) in January 2015.  Some time before then, WM might well ask DEQ to approve a second stretch of berm.  The first section of berm is nearing completion.  This 40-foot-high wall will allow WM to keep the dump open three more years, accepting more than 500,000 tons of waste a year.  An additional stretch of wall would keep the dump open even longer.

We argued vigorously that the first berm section is not engineered correctly and is likely to collapse when the looming magnitude 9.0 Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake strikes.  WM representative Paul Burns once assured us that all new (post-initial berm) construction at the dump would meet the 9.0 standard; if plans for a new berm or for expansion aren't so engineered, we will argue vigorously again.

Moreover, any expansion must pass Site Design Review (SDR) before it can be approved by the County.  Most of the arguments we would have made on appeal of the rezoning can be made during the SDR process.  In fact, WM and the County repeated time after time during the rezoning hearings that many of the concerns being raised weren't relevant to zoning and could only be addressed during SDR.

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