Here Come The Judge!

The Stop the Dump Coalition today filed a Notice of Intent to Appeal Yamhill County's approval of Riverbend Landfill's expansion.  The NITA (as the Notice is called) was filed with LUBA, the state Land Use Board of Appeals.

By law a copy of the NITA must be mailed to everyone who testified or submitted written testimony in the hearings the County held on the landfill's application.  The County must now prepare a "record" of those proceedings, which attorneys and LUBA judges can refer to in arguing the case.  Once the record is complete, Stop the Dump will have 21 days to file its opening brief.

Stop the Dump was joined in the NITA by the Willamette Valley Wineries Association and McPhillips Farms, Inc.


Even before the NITA was filed, however, Waste Management presented its expansion application to the state Department of Environmental Quality, DEQ.  At 824 pages, the application will make good bedtime reading for a good many bedtimes.

Fortunately, DEQ estimates that it will take several months to complete its own review of the application.  In the meantime, Stop the Dump and its allies will be busy parsing the massive document and securing experts to review it, as well.  The work ahead will be time-intensive and expensive.

You can contribute to this effort.  If you have environmental expertise and are willing to review and comment on the application, contact Susan Watkins here to receive a copy of the application (on CD-rom).

If you have an interest in Stopping this Expansion, please contribute!  Many of you have already donated in response to the fund-raising letter Stop the Dump recently sent out.  THANK YOU so much.  We have been amazed at your generosity.

If you did not get a fund raising letter, but would like to donate (gentle hint) , please take advantage of the easy-to-use donate button at the top of this page!

To all of you, thank you so much for the continued support.  We couldn't do any of this without you.

DEQ Names Contact for Riverbend Questions

Tired of fielding questions about Riverbend Landfill from people concerned about their health, their environment, and the health of their community, the state Department of Environmental Quality has decided to funnel all inquiries about the landfill to -- Bend.

The individual who will now serve as DEQ's "point man" for Yamhill County's huge regional dump is Greg Svelund, whose office is in the Central Oregon community.  Svelund can be reached by email at svelund.greg@deq.state.or.us or by phone at 541-633-2008.

Lissa Druback, DEQ Solid Waste Manager and supervisor of Bob Schwarz, the permit writer for Riverbend, explained Svelund's appointment in an email to a Stop the Dump board member:

"Because we expect to receive many inquiries about this permit modification that cover multiple programs at DEQ, we have identified a single point of contact for questions about Riverbend from here on out.  That person is Greg Svelund in our Bend office....  We will answer the questions received as our workload allows.  If you have any additional questions about the public comment process, please contact Greg."

The permit modification Druback refers to is the 29-acre expansion recently approved by Yamhill County.  Although Waste Management has already submitted an application to DEQ for its approval, Yamhill County citizens have not had access to that application because DEQ is moving some offices, putting all public records requests on hold for several weeks.  Stop the Dump is working with DEQ to release the application anyway and hopes to have the documents available for review soon.