Supreme Court Accepts Stop the Dump Appeal

The Oregon Supreme Court this week agreed to review a lower court ruling in the Stop the Dump Coalition's suit to stop Riverbend Landfill's expansion.  The state Court of Appeals had held that Riverbend could expand if Yamhill County Commissioners found sufficient evidence that the expansion would not impose significant cumulative impacts on neighborhood farmers.

After that ruling, but before the Commissioners could act, Stop the Dump, its allies, and other statewide organizations with an interest in preserving farm land asked the Supreme Court to review the COA decision.  They worried that the wording of the COA ruling would put millions of acres of farm land in jeopardy by allowing non-farm uses to impinge on farming activities unless affected farms could show that farming would be significantly reduced statewide.

The Supreme Court has no legal obligation to take every appeal from the COA, so the fact that the Court has agreed to hear this case means that the Court agrees that the issues raised are significant.

Stop the Dump Coalition President Ilsa Perse is encouraged by the news.  In a press release issued today, she wrote:

Friends,

BIG NEWS!!!

At last, some excellent news on the garbage front.  The Oregon Supreme Court has just issued an Order Allowing Review of our appeal of the recent Court of Appeals decision that would have allowed Waste Management to harm local farmers, as long as they paid the farmers for the damage done to their farming practice, and their lives. 

We knew that the Appeal Court's and Yamhill County's interpretation of Oregon Land Use law was novel and, we feel, incorrect. It would have serious and detrimental implications for the preservation of Oregon’s agricultural future. If the Court of Appeals decision is allowed to stand, farming in Oregon could be severely impacted by many different non-farm uses that are allowed on exclusive farm use land.  The Supreme Court only agrees to hear 10% of the requests for review that they receive, so clearly they see the importance of resolving the issues that we raised in our appeal.

It is impossible to know if, in agreeing to hear the case, the Supreme Court will decide that the Court of Appeals made the right decision or, we hope, the wrong one.  The Court will not be hearing oral arguments until November, and then it could take a year or two or three to issue a decision,  But no matter how long it takes for the Supremes to decide,  Waste Management's reckless expansion onto 29 additional acres is on hold. 

This is VERY GOOD NEWS! 

140 Letters About the Dump!

Paul Burns, trouble shooter extraordinaire for Waste Management (WM), Texas-based corporate owner of Riverbend Landfill, has been instrumental in shaping the dump's proposed expansion in Yamhill County.  Now Burns has taken to the press to get his story out.

The local News-Register printed Burns' version of the landfill's troubled romance with Yamhill County in its Viewpoints section last Friday, June 9.  (You can read the article online here.)

Burns describes the past "nearly eight years" as an effort by WM to work with and learn from Riverbend's neighbors.  He can't go back farther than that because nine years ago, WM proposed a "twice as high, twice as wide" expansion that would have quadrupled the landfill's volume.  In 2008, 135'-high Riverbend was already the tallest man-made structure in Yamhill County (the equivalent of a 13-story building).

The expansion WM proposed back in 2008 would have added an additional 13 stories and expanded the landfill by 96 football fields (99 acres).  "Twice as high, twice as wide" meant a garbage mountain nearly as tall as the Portland skyline, a trash footprint as long and wide as downtown McMinnville, and a smell that would stink up 3rd Street.

Of course, compared to that, everything about the current 29-acre expansion seems puny.

Burns notes:

- the proposed expansion's design "goes beyond" M9.0 (Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake) standards.  But not the existing portions of the dump.

- a "green tech" alternative to an even bigger landfill will be added.  But not for seven years after the state approves the expansion and perhaps not even then; Dave Steiner, WM CEO, told Forbes Magazine last fall that the company was no longer investing in new technologies.

- Yamhill County will lose a strong revenue stream of $1,000,000/year.  But WM paid that amount for only about three years, getting the right to pollute our river and our air for decades for a lot less.  Moreover, the County can levy its fees on trash haulers instead of landfills and collect the same amount without affecting garbage rates.

- WM has made 450 acres surrounding the dump available for "projects that connect to community values."  Although a portion of this land has been put into agricultural production with the goal of generating income for the local food bank, some of the "projects" are 50-year leases that enrich WM.

- the current expansion proposal is "community-driven."  The sole reason WM moved away from its "twice as high, twice as wide" plan was community outrage.  In the past nine years, Stop the Dump Coalition, its allies, and hundreds of citizen activists have raised their voices to protest WM's plans to exploit our County merely to enhance WM's bottom line.

You can continue this tradition of speaking out -- write the News Register a letter today (deadline for Friday's paper is noon Wednesday).  Tell the paper, its readers, and WM what you think of proposals to expand Riverbend Landfill:  http://newsregister.com/submit-letter.

PS.  "140 letters" refers to the number of characters in a tweet.  Can we submit 140 actual letters to the editor?  Write now!

Note:  Article updated 6-13-17 to reflect new information about the 450-acre "stewardship" lands.