Riverbend Appeals LUBA Ruling

As reported in our previous post, the state Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) ruled in May that evidence presented to the Yamhill County Board of Commissioners (BOC) was not enough to support the BOC 's 2015 vote to allow expansion.  Riverbend has now appealed that ruling to the state Court of Appeals.

To approve the expansion, the BOC had to be satisfied that a larger landfill would not "significantly impact" surrounding farms.  Under state law, a landfill cannot expand into farm land if its impacts on customary farm practices or costs will be "significant," which the Oregon Supreme has said is more than "trivial" but less than "major."

Where impacts (litter fouling hay fields, bird droppings spoiling cherries) were clear, the BOC imposed conditions -- so-called "mitigation measures" -- designed to make the impacts less than significant.  The conditions, however, required compliance by the farmer, and LUBA threw them out.

A key condition involved litter from the landfill that made its way into neighboring farmers' hay fields.  Plastic bags especially foul harvesting equipment and reduce the value of baled hay.  Riverbend proposed, and the BOC approved, a condition requiring the landfill to cull litter out of the hay fields before harvest.  But this would have required the farmer to agree to do the extra work himself or to allow Riverbend workers to come onto his land.  Earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled that the County cannot require the farmer to participate in a mitigating condition, and so LUBA rejected the condition.

LUBA further said specifically that other measures Riverbend could take on its own (in this case, adding an additional litter fence to the landfill itself) were not enough to reduce the litter impacts below the "significant" threshhold.

The case was set to go back to the BOC, but now Riverbend has appealed the LUBA ruling to the Court of Appeals.  Landfill opponents Stop the Dump Coalition, Willamette Valley Wineries Association, Ramsey McPhillips, and Friends of Yamhill County have now counter-appealed.  The appeals will be argued to the court on August 1.

In a statement, Stop the Dump President Ilsa Perse saw no way to success for Riverbend: "LUBA’s remand to the County gave Waste Management [Riverbend's Texas-based corporate owner] no path forward to expanding Riverbend Landfill.... Waste Management is appealing to the Court of Appeals in order to forestall having to throw in the towel and give up on expanding the dump."