Waste Management Unveils New Proposal

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!