The dump remains open.
Sigh.
Given efforts by Stop the Dump and its allies (notably McPhillips Farms, the Farm Bureau, 1000 Friends of Oregon, and the State of Oregon itself) to prevent a misguided expansion onto prime farmland, however, Riverbend has collected only about 70,000 yards of waste during 2018, down considerably from the 510,000-plus yards deposited as recently as 2014 when the expansion plan was proposed.
The fact that there is any capacity at all is due to DEQ's approval of the "vertical expansion" (aka final grading plan modification), which allows Riverbend to recontour its slopes to permit waste to be dumped atop previously closed cells.
In addition to the lawsuit, still in the state Supreme Court, over the prime farmland expansion, there is also a law suit over this vertical expansion. The landfill prevailed in state court on the theory that any work within the original landfill footprint is perpetually allowed under the initial permits issued by Yamhill County back in 1980. Expansion opponents contend that rezoning the landfill, including the original footprint area, to EFU (exclusive farm use) in 2011 made all activity within the EFU zone subject to EFU rules. EFU requirements for landfills include a hearing on the proposed activity's impacts on area farmers. Of course, such a hearing was never held.
The vertical expansion appeal is waiting to be set for oral argument in the Court of Appeals. As with the Supreme Court case, there is no deadline for a decision.
Waste Management, Riverbend's Texas-based corporate owner, contends that expansion opponents are hurting the environment more than a smelly, noisy, leaking, vermin-attracting landfill on a river for two reasons:
1) Legal delays only serve to extend the dump's life; ie, it would be full by now if the 29-acre expansion had been approved and the full 500,000-plus tons of waste could have been dumped each of the past four years. Since the expansion was supposed to extend the landfill's life by 10-20 years, this seems doubtful.
2) We would already be four years into the County-mandated seven-year deadline for establishing an alternative "green" waste-processing facility at Riverbend. First, the green tech facility would never be required if the dump reached capacity and closed before the seven years were up (see #1). Second, Waste Management has admitted that as a company it is nowhere near developing the kind of green tech that it promised the County. Locally, Nick Godfrey, dump manager, says that one technology is close, though not yet ready for primetime. Unfortunately, we have heard that before, with gasification (InEnTec), oil (Agilyx), pellets, and more. Until dumping becomes too expensive for communities, waste giants like WM have no real incentive to develop functional alternatives.
Speaking of Agilyx, this NW company is back in the recycling mix. Recology, which picks up McMinnville and south County waste and operates a recycling depot in Mac, is working with Zero Waste McMinnville to deliver waste styrofoam to Agilyx, which will convert it back to usable oil. The program begins on Boxing Day, December 26 -- just in time for Christmas waste!
For more info, see the article at https://zerowastemcminnville.org/.
