Commissioners Approve Expansion 2-1

Friends,

Yesterday the Yamhill County Commissioners voted to approve the expansion of the dump.  The vote was 2-1, but the big surprise was that the no vote came from Allen Springer, who gave no reason for his vote, and did it in such a way that many didn't realize he had actually voted in opposition.  Let's hope news organizations press him for his reasons to vote no....

Mike Brandt made clear in his staff report that ORS 215.296 was a reason to deny the application.  This ORS prohibits non-farm practices (like a dump) on farm land if there is a negative impact on farmers. Commissioner Starrett seemed to understand that farmers were being seriously impacted. Then she argued against herself that the impacts were not a legal reason to vote no; she appeared not to realize that the legal threshold for ORS 215.296 had certainly been met and that was all the legal reason she needed.  As many of you know, she is very concerned about the impacts on farmers' lives from a bike trail. Those impacts pale in comparison to the impacts of 15 million tons (and growing) of putrescible waste bordering peoples' farms.  Commissioner Primozich gave no reason for his vote.

In addition to ORS 215.296, Mike Brandt told the commissioners that OAR 660 was also a legal reason to deny the application. They appeared not to want to wander into more complex laws, so avoided all mention of it.   We were very impressed by the Planning Department's thorough report.  We are, of course, disappointed that two of the commissioners did not pay attention to the legal reasons to deny the application.

The Commissioners heaped blame on previous commissioners, thereby justifying continuing the same bad policies.Commissioner Starrett acknowledged that the dump is in a "lousy location" but  that was not their doing. Voting to expand in that same lousy location makes no sense.

There are hundreds of pages of expert testimony that provide strong legal arguments to deny Waste Management's  application.  All that is needed is the political will to take the county in a new direction.  We did not see that political will today.

Thank you for the huge turnout.  We'll keep you posted on further plans.

- Stop the Dump Coalition