By Ikidu Knott
This just in: Waste
Management, Texas-based owner of Riverbend Landfill, today asked the Yamhill
County Board of Commissioners (BOC) to approve its landfill expansion
application.
If you've followed the convoluted history of this proposed
expansion, you know that the application was originally filed in 2014, approved
by the BOC, appealed to the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA), remanded to the
BOC and approved again, appealed again to LUBA and from there to the Court of
Appeals (COA) and the state Supreme Court, which sent it back to LUBA, which
remanded it to the BOC, which order was appealed to the COA, which upheld LUBA
(pause here for breath).
The upshot is that the courts gave Waste Management until
May 4, 2020, to pursue the current application with the BOC.
There's been a lot of speculation in garbage circles about
when and if WM would take that big step.
Those Against Big Garbage (the so-called "zero
wasters") have been crossing their fingers that WM will just walk away
from Yamhill County and close Riverbend down for good.
The Pro Waste contingent, meanwhile, has also been hoping WM
would forgo its current application.
They look to win a second pro-garbage seat on the BOC in the May 19,
2020, election. With a majority squarely
in offal's corner, the Trash Talkers believe approving a new application would
be a picnic, with plenty of room in an expanded landfill for the leftovers.
So all sides were disappointed when WM submitted its
proposal to the BOC this morning.
The proposal itself is even more surprising. Rather than approve what remains of the
original proposal, which had been shorn via various court orders of 10 acres,
plastic bags, seagull poop, and malodorous emanations, WM has told the BOC it
intends to rely on a 1991 County Counsel opinion to cover the existing waste mountain
with green tarps and erect a giant, 100-foot-tall, internally-lit, blow-up
acorn on the top.
Under the 1991 opinion, WM claims, the County has no choice
but to allow this enhancement. But even
if the opinion doesn't apply, WM contends its proposal will have a significant
positive impact on farming practices in the region, since everyone is planting
filberts now.
As you can imagine, the proposal is driving the dump's
neighbors nuts...or would be if this wasn't an April Fool!
