Let them drink leachate!

by Leonard Rydell

Some statistics about the original landfill:

• 10% of Riverbend Landfill is in the Floodway as delineated by FEMA in 1982.
• 52.4% of Riverbend Landfill is in the 1982 Floodway and Floodplain (the "floodway" is where river water flows during a flood; the "floodplain" is the rest of the land area that floods when a river overflows).
• 29% of Riverbend landfill (Cells No. 1, 2, and 3) are not lined; portions of these cells are below ground water levels.

You will be happy to know that Yamhill County has "solved" these problems with the floodway and floodplain -- not by moving the landfill out of the water flow, but by redrawing the floodway lines.

Waste Management wants us to believe that Riverbend Landfill is a modern, state-of-the-art, lined landfill.  It is designed with a top liner, a bottom liner, and a secondary bottom liner.  The top liner prevents rain water from getting into the landfill.  The bottom liner collects the water that somehow penetrates the top liner, and the secondary bottom liner collects the leachate that makes it through both the top and bottom liners.  With these precautions, one would think that leachate would not represent a problem to the river or to ground water.

However, remember that 29% of the landfill bottom is not lined (Cells 1, 2, and 3).  Out of the million of gallons of rain that falls on each acre of Riverbend Landfill every year, about 20% is hauled out of Yamhill County as leachate (9 tanker loads a day in 2013).  Leachate generation has increased from 19,279,540 gallons in 2013 to 32,225,199 gallons in 2014, a 67% increase.  This is a whopping 37% of the rain that fell on the top liner of the landfill in 2014.  This leachate is collected below the top liner and between the two bottom liners and from ground water in Cells 1, 2, and 3.

The leachate is too toxic to treat at any biological sewer treatment plant in Yamhill County.  Instead the leachate must be hauled out of county by exhaust-spewing trucks -- and across bridges and roads that probably will not be standing or passable after the 9.0 Cascadia earthquake even if the leachate collection, pumping and storage systems remain intact.

We have evidence, however, that the leachate system will not continue operating in the event of an earthquake or even a bad storm.  In January/February 2014, heavy rains and snow overwhelmed the existing system.  The weather conditions made it impossible to haul leachate away from the landfill.  But the leachate kept flowing, and the on-site collection ponds came close to overflowing.  Waste Management's response was to add a couple of new storage tanks -- not curbing leachate production.

The South Yamhill River is heavily used for irrigation of food crops.  The City of Newberg gets its water downstream from gravel deposits next to the Willamette River, and Wilsonville gets its water from the Willamette River.  Do we want our neighbors, our food, and domesticated animals drinking leachate?

Express your opinion.  Contact Yamhill County Commissioners ("Mary Starrett" <starrettm@co.yamhill.or.us>

"Stan Primozich"<primozichs@co.yamhill.or.us> and "Allan Springer" <springera@co.yamhill.or.us>) and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (Dick Pedersen, Director pedersen.dick@deq.state.or.us. 

Demand accountability.  Tell them, “Enough is Enough,” and ask them to stop Riverbend Landfill expansion and start requiring actions to clean up the mess.