Garbage In (from Metro), Leachate Out

Today, Wednesday, January 21, marked the annual landfill tour by the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, the Yamhill County citizen board with oversight on the landfill.  SWAC meetings, include the landfill tour, are open to the public, and Ilsa Perse, President of the Stop the Dump Coalition, was along for the ride on today's tour.  This is her report:

"The New Year brings even more out-of-county garbage to our bucolic Landfill-by-the-River.  Yamhill County now contributes only 25% of the trash hauled to the dump, down 5% from last year, with garbage from the Metro area contributing almost 65% of all the trash brought to Riverbend.  Waste Management spokeswoman Jackie Lang attributes the drop in local trash to (1) diverting the ash from SP Fiber Technology in Newberg to Hillsboro and (2) recycling construction and demolition debris left at the Newberg transfer station.  The better the diversion rate in Yamhill County, the more room the landfill will have for other counties' garbage.  Such a deal. 

"But best of all is the quantity of leachate produced by all this garbage.  In 2013, over 19 MILLION GALLONS of toxic leachate were drained out of the dump.  What becomes of all this leachate? It is hauled in tanker trucks every day through the county to municipal waste water treatment plants some place else.   Bill Carr, a senior manager at Riverbend Landfill, commented on how a landfill in the rainy part of the state made a whole lot of leachate.  Before he could retract this somewhat damning statement, a participant on the tour chimed in, 'You know how to solve the problem, don't you?'  The question went unanswered."

If you are one of the many County residents who believes we should take care of our own waste, these statistics probably have you tearing out your hair.

"What," you shout, "you mean we are sacrificing our river (which provides irrigation and drinking water to farms and communities downstream), our air (think both stink and green house gases), our farmland (some buried in waste, more under attack from vermin and vectors attracted to the vicinity by the dump), and our tourist economy (who wants to stop at smelly, ugly McMinnville or drive past a humongous pile of garbage just to reach another winery or produce stand?), all so that Portland Metro can bring its filth here -- and then we still have to dump our liquid waste somewhere else??"

Something is definitely wrong with this picture.  When the expansion proposal goes to the Board of Commissioners, tell them enough is enough.  It's time to STOP THE DUMP!  We are not Metro's garbage pit.