If, like this writer, you have been waiting for the State Supreme Court to rule on Riverbend Landfill's expansion plans, well, you are still waiting. It's been over a year now, with no ruling in sight.
The issue, as you will recall, is how to interpret state law that requires the County to determine whether a proposed nonfarm project (like a dump) on high-value farmland will "significantly impact" area farming practices.
Yamhill County found that any significant impacts from Riverbend's proposed expansion could be mitigated by changes in some of those surrounding farming practices. In other words, the expansion's adverse impacts could be reduced if the farmers changed the way they farm.
Stop the Dump and other petitioners asked the Supreme Court to find that this is ridiculous. Mitigation steps should be taken by the nonfarm applicant, not by the farmers whose lands and livelihood are threatened by the proposed nonfarm development. Oregon courts have not ruled on this question before, so the Court's decision will have huge impacts across the state, potentially affecting a host of nonfarm uses like resorts and golf courses as well as landfills.
While we are waiting, however, there is a piece of exceedingly good news to pass on.
In November, Yamhill County voters elected a new face to the County Board of Commissioners: farmer Casey Kulla. Kulla is not expected to be the rubber stamp for Waste Management (Riverbend's Texas-based corporate owner) that his predecessor was. Kulla has shown a willingness to investigate ways of handling County waste that do not include a local dump. He is also interested -- as is current Commissioner Rick Olson -- in asking the County's Solid Waste Advisory Committee (SWAC) to expand its role in monitoring Riverbend and advising Commissioners.
SWAC could be asked to investigate safety and other issues at the dump that are unrelated to possible expansion and also to determine whether the current system of granting exclusive, on-going franchises to the companies that haul our garbage is the best solution for Yamhill County.
While everybody waits for Kulla to take his seat in January and for the Supreme Court to rule, garbage keeps flowing to Riverbend under a vertical expansion approved by the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) as a "modified final grading plan." Under that approval, Riverbend can reconfigure its slopes, but not expand its on-the-ground footprint. Stop the Dump and others have also sued to stop this "expansion." That case too is slowly winding its way through the courts.
