The Yamhill County Board of Commissioners has agreed to hold a hearing on Riverbend Landfill's request to "proceed with its application" now that the state Supreme Court has overturned the County's previous approval of the landfill's application to expand.
To win now, Riverbend, a subsidiary of Texas-based mega waste company Waste Management (WM), must show that an expanded landfill can prevent litter from significantly affecting a single neighboring farm, and that various impacts from the landfill, when added together, will not affect any farm significantly.
"Significant" in this context is defined as somewhere between trivial and major.
To obtain the County's permission to expand back in 2016, Riverbend offered to pay farmers for costs imposed on their farms by the landfill, eg, by buying a bird-contaminated crop and by hiring workers to pick litter out of farmers' fields. Last year the Supreme Court threw out this "pay to play" scheme, holding that mitigation of any such impacts cannot require farmer cooperation but must instead be built into the landfill's expansion plan.
The new hearing is the last -- maybe -- step toward a final decision on the application Riverbend submitted in 2014.
The County Planning Department will accept written comment on two subjects until (and including) July 9 at 10:00 AM. Comments may be submitted by US mail to the Department at 525 NE Fourth Street, McMinnville OR 97128, or electronically to Department Director Ken Friday at fridayk@co.yamhill.or.us. Written comments may also be submitted at the hearing, but you'll need to bring 9 copies. There will be no oral testimony.
It's not clear whether this will be an in-person or virtual meeting; presumably the Board will make that known beforehand.
The Board of Commissioners will not decide the case on July 9 but will set a later date for deliberation and decision. The Board may extend the comment period for purposes of rebuttal.
All comments are to be directed to one or both of the following only:
1) Whether the various impacts from the landfill as described in earlier hearings, when added together, significantly affect accepted farm practices on any farm, and
2) Whether litter generated by the landfill will force a significant change in accepted farm practices on the McPhillips farm.
To learn more, contact the Stop the Dump Coalition, info@stopthedumpcoalition.org.
