UPDATED - Title V Community Meeting Coming November 30

As part of its Air Quality (Title V) permit obligations, Riverbend Landfill is required to hold community meetings twice a year.  The next such meeting is now scheduled for November 30 at 7:00 PM.

This meeting is significant because the permit itself is up for renewal.  Given the way Riverbend has resisted responsibility for methane leaks in the past (see earlier articles), community members are on edge, nervous that the state Department of Environmental Quality, which both writes and enforces the permit, will use vague language that will let the dump continue to skirt environmental laws.

The Environmental Quality Commission, which oversees DEQ, is meeting November 17 & 18 and will take public comment beginning at 3:20 PM on the 17th, also virtually.  This will be an excellent opportunity to tell DEQ to write a strong permit that protects our air and makes the landfill operator liable for any emission release above the permitted total.

To attend the Title V meeting, contact mramos14@wm.com to "receive log-in credentials" and be placed on the email notification list. Nick Godfrey, dump manager, has promised to send out email notices telling the public how to attend the meeting on November 15.  Notices are also being posted in the Newberg Graphic and Yamhill Valley News-Register.

In the past, the virtual Title V meetings have been held on a Microsoft platform that many would-be participants have had difficulty logging onto, but there has been a phone-in option. 

To address the EQC, one must "sign-up" at the start of the Public Forum agenda item scheduled for 3:20 PM, at either:

• Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84116951899 or
  
• Toll-free telephone access: 877-853-5257
  
• Meeting ID: 841 1695 1899

Speakers are asked to limit comments to three minutes or less.

To contact the EQC outside of the public forum, contact Stephanie Caldera or call 503-229-5301.

 

Riverbend Tells Its Side of the Story

Riverbend Landfill representatives Jackie Lang and Jim Denson told Yamhill County's Solid Waste Advisory Committee today that the landfill was actually in compliance with state and federal regulations when the Environmental Protection Agency slapped it with a fine and detailed compliance order.  (See story below.)

Those penalties arose out of a 2018 EPA inspection at Riverbend.  During the inspection, which Lang and Denson characterized as a training exercise, EPA personnel used a new technology to visualize gases seeping from cracks and penetrations in the landfill cover, at sites that Riverbend's own contractors missed.

Lang and Denson did not dispute that the EPA detected unlawful emissions.  However, they asserted that the leaks did not violate either their permits or applicable regulations because those regs contemplated that the landfill would use a different technique for detecting leaks, and Riverbend had in fact used the required technique.

Oregon has recently tightened its regulations, though the technology to be used in detecting leaks has not been updated.  Instead, landfills will now be required to cover far more of their surface area when searching for wayward emissions.  And new federal regs require that all penetrations be inspected for leaks.  Denson told the Committee that Riverbend began checking penetrations before the new regulations took effect.

Though some Committee members expressed surprise that a landfill could be cited for failure to properly manage emissions when its inspections met the letter of the regulations, other members agreed that language in the permits should be tightened to make clear that unlawful emissions are to be managed and minimized, whatever methodology inspectors use.  The goal, after all, is to protect the air, not to meet the written standard.

EPA Fines Riverbend (Finally)

The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has fined Riverbend Landfill more than $104,000, the agency announced Thursday.  The fine stemmed from the landfill's failure to properly monitor and correct methane leaks as required by air quality regulations.

According to the EPA, Riverbend is required by the Clean Air Act to capture the emissions generated as garbage breaks down.  To ensure emissions are captured adequately, Riverbend is supposed to survey the surface of the landfill for leaks at least four times per year, using an instrument that measures methane present in the air.  If the landfill detects methane emissions above 500 parts per million, Riverbend must take corrective action to ensure those emissions are captured.  

In 2018, an inspection by EPA discovered nine separate instances of methane emissions greater than 500 ppm at different areas of the landfill. Riverbend's own records from 2015 to 2018, however, showed no areas with emissions above 500 ppm, including surface emission monitoring studies conducted both before and after EPA’s inspection. Based on these results, EPA determined that Riverbend failed to conduct adequate surface emission monitoring. 

EPA further determined that the landfill also failed to monitor cover integrity monthly, as required, and failed to perform required monthly monitoring in an onsite well.

The fine, part of EPA's stated efforts "to protect unfairly burdened communities and address the climate crisis," was levied as part of a settlement with the landfill.  According to the settlement, Riverbend neither confirmed nor denied EPA’s findings.

In addition to the fine, the settlement requires Riverbend to submit a new surface emission monitoring plan to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) by November 7 -- and to actually carry it out as required by law. Apparently because the dump has now proven itself to be untrustworthy, Riverbend must also use a GPS system to track and record the route its monitors take when measuring surface emissions.

The EPA's Compliance Order goes into great detail regarding means and methods the landfill's monitoring crew must employ, including the use of "brightly colored pin flags" at areas exceeding the 500 ppm cap and the specific time the monitors must take to examine the cover at any leak, to see what repairs it might need. Monitors' work must be verified by technical staff not involved in the actual monitoring, and an outside agency must be brought in to observe the monitors at work.

The detailed Compliance Order indicates the extent to which Riverbend violated the trust the law puts in a landfill operator to self-police. The law places primary responsibility for compliance in the hands of the operator, who is expected to report its own violations.  Riverbend promised to live up to those expectations when it applied for and received its air quality permit. Unfortunately, it comes as no surprise to the local community that Riverbend has not honored that promise.

What is perhaps more disheartening is that DEQ did not catch Riverbend's deceit itself. Instead, DEQ appears to have accepted Riverbend's reports at face value. The community has indeed been "unfairly burdened" by the shenanigans of the landfill and the indifference of the agency that is supposed to protect that community.

Landfill Loses in Court, Wins at County

Last month, the Oregon Court of Appeals put the final nail in Riverbend Landfill's expansion dream coffin.  In the future, if the dump wants to expand, it must file a completely new application, one that solves the litter problem that effectively deep-sixed its most recent request.

Controlling the spread of litter from either the dump face or haulers' trucks will not be easy.  At the last hearing on the issue, at the County Board of Commissioners in May, 2020, Riverbend's own experts cited several industry studies that concluded that litter was a major problem with no available effective cure.  Waste Management, Riverbend's Texas-based behemoth corporate owner, will have to invent a new plan, one which will have to be drastically different from the plan the County rejected (with Court approval) back in 2020.

Before the Court's decision was issued, however, the County was already demonstrating that Riverbend still holds conservative Commissioners in thrall.

As reported earlier, the landfill stopped accepting ordinary garbage (ie, municipal solid waste, or MSW) from garbage companies and self-haulers alike in mid-June, 2021, without notice or explanation.  Eventually, Riverbend told the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) that it needed to add beneficial soils to its lower slopes to create a sort of bench on which to pile more MSW.  Riverbend told some local jurisdictions that this process might take "months or years."

 

Subsequently, the dump asked the County to effectively reduce the annual payment it owed under its franchise agreement.  That agreement called for base payments of about $240,000 a year plus a premium based on tonnage accepted.  With no tonnage coming in, Riverbend naturally wanted to reduce its expenses.

To persuade the County to agree, however, Riverbend pretended that the possibility of expansion still existed--and not only that, but also that Metro might reverse its 2019 decision and begin sending waste to Yamhill County again.

Commissioners Berschauer and Starrett never questioned these assumptions.  Ultimately, the County approved a reduction in the annual payment of $50,000 a year until the base payment amount reached $50,000 annually, where it would remain until 2033.  This, with no guarantee whatsoever that the landfill will ever accept another ounce of County garbage again.  In fact, the Commissioners agreed to give Riverbend complete control of the waste it accepts over those years, which conceivably could be only waste from China or from favored garbage companies and nothing from local haulers at all.

 

At last report, DEQ had not yet determined whether a dump that does not accept waste is actually operating or has, in fact, closed.  Landfill opponents are rooting for the latter.

Landfill Proposes Lopsided License Extension

"Fifty thousand a year or nothing."

That was how Waste Management PR specialist Jackie Lang described the "deal" that Riverbend Landfill offered the County last week:  Give us what we want, and we'll pay you a flat fee of $50,000 a year -- or we will pay nothing.  Nevermind that the current license agreement requires the landfill to pay upwards of a quarter million dollars a year on a sliding scale.

What Riverbend wants is a complete giveaway by the County:  a 20-year agreement, the flat fee, and Riverbend to have both total control over what waste it accepts, including volume, kind, and source, and the exclusive right to terminate the agreement.  The County and its residents get nothing.  Oh, except more litter, crop-ravaging birds, noise, dirt, heavy truck traffic, and polluted water and air.

The Board of Commissioners questioned Lang and WM attorney Tommy Brooks closely about the landfill's decision to refuse waste from self-haulers.  Riverbend had told the state Department of Environmental Quality that it would be accepting ordinary municipal solid waste from time to time, but Lang and Brooks explained that the waste would come only from Waste Management's hauling subsidiary in Newberg -- not from locals or from Recology, the other hauler in the County.

Lang and Brooks also dangled the elusive "green tech" that Waste Management has promised the County for years, although Brooks admitted that no specific green tech would be identified until Riverbend expands.  When pressed by Commissioners, they refused to identify any successful technology developed or implemented by Waste Management on a large scale, pointing only to decades-old investments in InEnTec (pyrolysis) and Agilyx (reverse engineering plastics into oil), both of which operate on small scales.

Lang and Brooks also touted the renewable energy Riverbend provides by processing methane, a climate-threatening landfill byproduct, into electricity.  McMinnville Water & Light uses the electricity the landfill generates, but, according to Riverbend officials, has in the past refused to accept more even though the landfill could produce more.  Excess methane is flared away.

Riverbend also emphasized its investment in its physical plant, $18 million over many years plus a claimed $1,000,000 recycling area (which consists of a concrete platform people drive onto and then toss their recyclables into bins down below, usually with no assistance from Riverbend personnel).  This actually seems puny, far less than a modern landfill requires to function well.  A 2005 study of landfill construction costs estimated that costs could run as high as $800,000 per acre on flat, cleared ground, which would require a minimum $64 million investment at Riverbend.

No mention was made of the timing of Riverbend's request, with the Court of Appeals' ruling on its expansion denial appeal due within weeks.  Nor did the Board consider sending the proposed amendment to SWAC, the County's Solid Waste Advisory Committee, for comment and recommendation.

The Board of Commissioners eventually asked County Counsel Christian Boenisch to negotiate a proposal with Riverbend.  They hoped he could bring one back to the Board at its July 29th meeting, but the matter is not included on the Board's posted agenda.

Citizens can weigh in by sending written comments to BOCINFO@co.yamhill.or.us or by US mail to 535 NE Fifth Street, McMinnville, OR  97128.

Riverbend Pushes "Little Lie"

If the "Big Lie" is that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen, the "Little Lie" is that Riverbend Landfill's expansion plans are alive and well.

 

In fact, Yamhill County Commissioners voted in 2020 to deny the dump's request to expand.  The Commissioners' decision was upheld by LUBA, the state Land Use Board of Appeals.  Riverbend did not appeal that part of LUBA's ruling.

 

Therefore, expansion is dead.

 

That hasn't stopped Riverbend from telling the Commissioners in writing this week that its expansion proposal "remains pending before the Oregon Courts" and that there is an "interim period before a final resolution on the closure or expansion of the Disposal Site."

 

As reported earlier, the landfill stopped accepting ordinary garbage (ie, municipal solid waste, or MSW) from garbage companies and self-haulers alike in mid-June, without notice or explanation.  Subsequently, Riverbend told the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) that it needed to add beneficial soils to its lower slopes to create a sort of bench on which to pile more MSW.  Riverbend told some local jurisdictions that this process might take "months or years."

 

DEQ has apparently accepted the dump's new status without comment or question.

 

Riverbend's mendacious audacity came to the Commissioners in the form of a proposed amendment to its County license to maintain the dump.  The landfill sought a 20-year term with a flat fee of $50,000 paid to the County per year, without regard to the amount of waste hauled to the dump.  Riverbend also asked for complete control of the waste it accepts over those 20 years, so conceivably it could accept only waste from China or from favored garbage companies and nothing from local haulers at all.

 

The proposed amendment was originally scheduled to be reviewed by the Commissioners today, but Board Chair Mary Starrett asked that the item be pulled from the agenda and rescheduled for next week (July 22, 2021, at 10:00 AM) so the Board can get some additional information from Waste Management, Riverbend's Texas-based corporate owner.

Interested readers can view Board of Commissioners meetings live on Zoom.  A link to each meeting is posted in the upper right-hand corner of that meeting's agenda; the agenda can be found at https://www.co.yamhill.or.us/meetings a day or two before the scheduled meeting.  Meetings are recorded, and links to past meetings are available on the same page.

Anyone can comment on the proposed license amendment by sending an email to BOCINFO@co.yamhill.or.us before the July 22 meeting.  A copy of the amendment is available on pages 99-101 of the packet for the July 15, 2021, meeting.

Wither Riverbend?

As the dust settles, it appears that Waste Management, Riverbend Landfill's Texas-based corporate owner, is scrambling for ways to keep the landfill open even as its options dwindle.

The latest is, of course, the "pause" in normal operations, set to begin July 1st.  This "pause" was put in place on the spur of the moment with little notice to hauling contractors accustomed to bringing their waste to Riverbend and apparently no notice at all to Yamhill County, the public body that licenses the landfill to begin with.

Under this "pause," the dump will stop accepting waste from self-haulers and hauling companies alike.  Instead, Riverbend will accept only "soils," which it needs to build up a bench on which to place more garbage later.  Per the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the change will look like this:

 

Waste Management seems to think this modification to the dump's side slope will keep the landfill open -- never mind that Yamhill County has rejected its expansion plans, the rejection was upheld by the state Land Use Board of Appeals, and Riverbend did not appeal that decision.  In other words, the dump's expansion plans are dead.

Moreover, even were Riverbend to come back to the County with a new expansion plan, it would face the very likely insurmountable barrier of having to demonstrate that it can control litter wafting off the landfill onto adjacent farms.  By allowing LUBA's expansion decision to stand, Riverbend conceded that its high-tech, multiple litter-fence solution will not work.  Short of completely enclosing the dump in a vent-less building, expansion appears dead in the water.

This hasn't kept Waste Management from claiming that its closure would result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars to Yamhill County.  As reported in our June 27 post below, the company contends that it has "provided a strong and steady revenue stream of more than $1 million/year to Yamhill County."

County records show otherwise.  In fact, in 2018 and 2019 Riverbend paid the contractual minimum -- about a quarter of the million it claims it paid each year.  In 2017, the dump paid only a little more.  Records for early 2020 show the trend continuing.

Fudging its financial numbers isn't the only route Riverbend is taking as it scrambles to stay relevant.  The landfill has never been honest about its remaining capacity.  While it's obvious that capacity is related to the amount of waste disposed at the site, landfill spokespersons have bandied about different useful lives and volumes for years.  Most recently, per DEQ, Riverbend is projecting a remaining lifespan of 8.3 years, based on 200 tons per day, the approximate waste flow in 2019 and 2020.  [Note:  DEQ uses tons and cubic yards interchangeably, as one cubic yard of municipal solid waste weighs about 1 ton.]  The landfill could, of course, reduce its waste intake to one ton a day -- or none, as will happen beginning in July -- and thereby "extend" the landfill's life indefinitely.

Riverbend is pursuing at least one more gambit.  Although it failed to appeal LUBA's order denying expansion, the dump did appeal the County's denial of its flood plain permit.  The state Court of Appeals heard arguments in the case one day before Waste Management announced its "pause."  The Court seemed inclined to remand the matter back to the County -- but only so the County could put findings denying the permit into the record.

Why would having an active flood plain permit without a viable expansion permit matter?  That's a mystery, given that under County law, the flood plain permit expires if substantial construction doesn't occur within 180 days after issuance.  With no expansion permit, there's nothing to construct, substantial or otherwise.

DEQ doesn't seem to realize how it's being played.  Let's hope the County figures this out. 

Landfill Closing? Pausing? Messing with Us?

 It's Thursday, June 17th, and the rumors are flying:  The landfill has closed!  For good!  The landfill is turning away "self-haulers," who bring their own household waste to the dump.  The landfill has broken its contract with Recology, refusing to let the south County hauler dump its garbage there.

What is going on?

The City of Amity tried to alert its citizens on the 18th, but had little to go on:

Good morning Amity business owners and operators,

I spoke with Recology today. They state that Riverbend Landfill will close beginning June 19th. Although this closure is supposed to be "temporary," when asked for a duration, Recology said the closure may be for "multiple months or years." During this closure, no vehicles public, commercial, or private will be authorized to dump there. So, private parties and contractors seeking to use the dump should go to either Coffin Butte (if able) or to their transfer station on Orchard Ave in McMinnville.  However, expect traffic and processing delays at the transfer center as Recology adjusts to the new demand. Recology will continue curbside trash pickup in Amity.

This may result in rate increases for all Recology customers throughout their entire service area. Further information will be forthcoming from Recology and presented to our City Council.

Sincerely,

Michael D. Thomas, City Administrator

Unfortunately the County was not able to do the same, as Riverbend did not bother to notify the entity that granted its license to operate!

Eventually, Waste Management released two "officials" letters,

one unsigned on June 18 and another a week later directed to the state Department of Environmental Quality by Jim Denson, Waste Management's Environmental Protection Manager,

 

 

 

In its letters, Waste Management asserts that it is "pausing" acceptance of waste other than soils until it can build up a side slope to create a bench for deposit of additional garbage.  Waste Management blames this "pause" on "delays" in its expansion, with no acknowledgement that the County has denied its expansion request or that the denial has been upheld by the Land Use Court of Appeals and not appealed by Riverbend.  In other words, expansion denial is FINAL.

Could it be that Waste Management is just a poor loser?

Riverbend Hit with Fines, Violation Notices

Riverbend Landfill has been hit with a flurry of violation notices and fines from federal and state environmental agencies.

In October 2019, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) found the landfill in violation of its permit for failing to measure harmful emissions from one of its landfill gas wells. According to DEQ, Riverbend had failed to monitor the well for at least two years. This failure resulted in use of inaccurate data to determine whether the landfill's overall gas collection system complied with federal law. DEQ referred the matter to the federal Environmental Protection Agency for action.

Two months later, in December 2019, DEQ again chastised Riverbend for failure to properly monitor and maintain two other gas wells. DEQ issued a "pre-enforcement notice" to the landfill and again referred the matter to the EPA.

In January 2020, the EPA issued a Notice of Violation (NOV) to Riverbend regarding not the wells DEQ had called out, but the landfill's failure to identify and capture methane leaks from cracks, seeps, and "areas of distressed vegetation" in the material covering the landfill. This failure continued for at least two and a half years.  The NOV also noted that Riverbend had failed to operate and maintain good air pollution control practices for at least five years.

Finally, DEQ recently fined Riverbend $8,400 for failure to collect and control leachate. Leachate is created when rainwater falling onto the landfill becomes contaminated from garbage and subsequently flows into ground water or nearby streams and rivers and becomes a hazard. This was not the first time the dump had allowed leachate to escape collection.

Landfill opponents have for years pointed to lax attention to regulatory duty at the landfill as a threat to area farms, water wells, irrigation sources, and recreational opportunities.

Opponents have also frequently chided the landfill and regulatory agency for failing to keep the County apprised of its violations.

Riverbend's license from Yamhill County expressly requires the landfill to "advise the County" whenever it receives notice of "any intent" from a governmental agency to "initiate a process leading to the issuance of a regulatory order." However, County Commissioners were shocked to learn about the EPA's NOV during the May 2020 hearing on Riverbend's expansion request. Certainly the citizens advisory committee on solid waste (SWAC) had never received notice of the violation.

The County cannot properly oversee the landfill if Riverbend continues to violate its license by withholding required information. The County needs to call Riverbend to account.

Landfill Appeals

Riverbend Landfill has notified the Oregon Court of Appeals that it will contest a lower court ruling denying its drive to expand.  Last month, the state Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) upheld Yamhill County's decision to reject Riverbend's expansion request.

The landfill currently encompasses about 87 acres between Highway 18 and the South Yamhill River just outside McMinnville.  Riverbend, owned by Texas-based international behemoth Waste Management, first applied to expand back in 2008, the so-called "twice as wide, twice as high" application.  Over the years, following a host of adverse court decisions, the landfill reduced its request to a 29-acre site that would bring a 90-foot-high wall of garbage within 50' of Highway 18.

After the Oregon Supreme Court ruled in essence that Riverbend can expand only if it keeps litter from escaping from the dump to land on nearby farms, the landfill presented a convoluted plan involving movable fences and quick response teams to move them.  Unfortunately for Riverbend, not even its own witnesses supported the plan, and the County easily rejected it.

LUBA rejected the landfill's appeal just as easily, so now the company's only option is to keep appealing.  If Riverbend loses in the courts, it will be difficult to return to the County Board of Commissioners with a new expansion application, even if a new Board likes the idea of a huge, smelly, dump in the middle of wine country.  The litter findings will haunt the dump forever.

Riverbend must submit its opening brief by May 20.

Nicole Montesano of Yamhill County's News-Register has written an excellent article about the dump and its expansion-seeking history.  Subscribers can find the article here.

Air Quality Meeting Coming Up!

Riverbend Landfill will hold an Air Quality meeting this coming Wednesday, April 28, at 7:00 PM.  The meeting will be virtual.

Air Quality meetings are required twice yearly by the dump's air pollution permit.  (Because the McMinnville area has relatively clean air, noxious gas emitters like Riverbend are allowed to pollute it.)  The public is invited, but you must register (see below).

Attendees at the meeting are sure to ask Riverbend's representatives about the Notice of Violation (NOV) issued last year by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  The NOV disclosed that Riverbend has violated federal law for years by failing to locate, report, and fix leaking "cover" on the landfill.  Riverbend has maintained that its discussions with the EPA are confidential, but much of the data appears on the EPA's public website, and the NOV itself is public.

The dump has also been stinking strongly the past few weeks, and neighbors and commuters will want to know why.

Finally, attendees may also be interested in Riverbend's plans for the future now that the state Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) has upheld the County's rejection of the dump's expansion effort.

Be prepared to receive no answer to any of your questions.

To register for the virtual meeting, contact Kendra Thompson, Waste Management Operations Specialist, Sr. - Landfill, at kthomp19@wm.com.  She will send you a link to the meeting.  Be aware that Waste Management uses Microsoft Teams for its meetings, a platform that has given would-be users trouble in the past.

LUBA Rejects Landfill Expansion

The long fight to keep Riverbend Landfill from expanding may be over.  The state Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) ruled yesterday that Yamhill County was right to reject Riverbend's latest expansion application.

The County's decision, issued last August, found that Riverbend could not meet the legal standard necessary to expand onto adjacent EFU (exclusive farm use)-zoned land.  Under Oregon law, a non-farm use cannot expand onto EFU land unless its impact on the normal farming practices of nearby farms is less than "significant."  The County found that Riverbend could not reduce litter escaping from the landfill sufficiently to meet that standard, and LUBA's decision makes clear that the County had ample reliable information on which to base its conclusion.

Riverbend had argued that litter in and of itself did not impact farming practices significantly and that, in any event, there was insufficient evidence to link offensive litter to the landfill.  LUBA ruled against Riverbend on both counts, pointing to the testimony of several farmers that even small amounts of plastic in a field can increase costs and foul equipment and to other evidence confirming that litter blew from both the landfill and garbage hauling trucks onto fields near the dump.

The landfill can choose to appeal, but LUBA ruled on only one of two major points decided by the County.  A favorable decision on appeal would only bring the case back to LUBA, which signaled that it would also find in the County's favor on the second point.

Landfill opponents are definitely hopeful that this decision spells the end of Riverbend's quest to expand.  That effort began more than a dozen years ago when the landfill filed its first expansion application with the County.  Situated on a floodplain between a tourist highway and a river, the landfill, owned by Texas-based international giant Waste Management, already covered 86 acres.  At 270 feet above sea level (120 feet above Highway 18), the dump was the tallest man-made object in the County.

That initial 2008 application would have made the dump twice as wide and twice as high -- large enough to dwarf downtown McMinnville and block views of Mt. Hood.  Public outcry reduced the proposed height, but not the sprawl.  The then-County Board of Commissioners approved the expansion anyway.

The courts rejected that approval because of a zoning issue.  The County then moved to "fix" the zoning in order to allow the landfill to move forward.  Though smaller overall, the "new and improved" expansion plan would have added an enormous, 90-foot high pile of waste within 50 feet of Highway 18.  That is the proposal the County and LUBA have rejected.

Yesterday's decision is only the latest setback for Riverbend and Waste Management.  Portland Metro had already stopped hauling its waste to the dump because it did not want to encourage landfill growth at a time where there are already hundreds of years of landfill capacity available in the northwest Oregon area.  The City of McMinnville also ordered its garbage hauler to take waste elsewhere.

In late 2020, the federal Environmental Protection Agency revealed that Riverbend had been in serious violation of its air quality permits for at least five years.  According the the EPA's website, both that investigation and Riverbend's violations are on-going.

Riverbend Designated Vaccination Clinic Site

The operators of Riverbend Landfill are not sitting idle while waiting for LUBA, the state Land Use Board of Appeals, to decide whether Yamhill County was wrong to reject its expansion application.

The landfill has taken the laudable step of offering its 96 acres as a mass vaccination site.

"We want to do the right thing for the County," a Riverbend spokesperson explained, "just as we did in the mid-2000's with our failed Stewardship Lands project.  And since Metro stopped sending its waste our way in 2020, we have plenty of open space," the spokesperson added.

According to a Riverbend press release, eligible people will register as usual with the state (at Getvaccinated.Oregon.gov).  When vaccines become available, those who have indicated an interest in getting shot at the dump will be contacted to sign up for a time slot.

"Everyone coming in will be given a mask and a clothespin," the spokesperson explained.  "The mask is for the protection of our staff as much as for the vaccinatee.  The clothespin is our own invention.  Not only does it help keep the mask in place, but it also reduces the ambient smell."

The spokesperson added, "Some in the community may have heard about our leaking methane, the powerful greenhouse gas that's been escaping through our faulty landfill cover.  But nobody should be worried just because the federal EPA is investigating our failure to live up to our operating permit.  Methane emissions only hurt the planet, not people."

As the press release says, "The landfill looks forward to serving the people of Yamhill County with the same disinterest we've shown for the past forty years..." or they would, if this weren't an APRIL FOOL!

LUBA Delays Landfill Decision

The state Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) has notified attorneys for Yamhill County, landfill opponents, and Riverbend Landfill that its decision in Riverbend's appeal will likely not be released until April 9.  That decision had been expected today.

LUBA is considering Riverbend's appeal of the County's rejection of its application to expand the dump.   As previously reported here, the landfill contends that its elaborate plan to contain litter will satisfy state law that prohibits projects like the expansion from negatively impacting farming practices.

Opponents counter that, if the plan is so great, Riverbend should be using it now, thus creating real-world evidence of the plan's efficacy.

Litter has proved to be a huge obstacle to Riverbend's expansion plans.  Even small amounts of plastic in nearby fields can damage expensive machinery and foul crops.  Without a way to control litter, the expansion cannot go forward.

Listen To the Landfill LUBA Hearing on Your Phone

This Tuesday, March 2, the state Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) will hear Riverbend Landfill's appeal from the County's decision to deny its expansion application.  LUBA will hear legal arguments only; there will be no witnesses, and no other evidence will be presented.

Due to Covid restrictions, the hearing will be virtual.  People who are interested can listen to the arguments on their phones. To listen, call 1-877-848-7030 at least two minutes before 1:00 PM (the time scheduled for oral argument); when asked for the Participant Code, enter 240954.  Be sure your phone is set on "mute."

Please note that the exact time the Riverbend case will be heard is never certain, as there are usually at least three cases scheduled for each court session.

To help ensure that background noise is kept to a minimum during the hearing, the attorneys have asked that people planning to listen in let them know ahead of time.  Please contact Ilsa Perse, info@stopthedump.com, for more information. 

Background.  The landfill originally filed its expansion application in 2008.  At the time, Riverbend sought to expand its then 96-acre footprint, sandwiched between the South Yamhill River and important tourist Highway 18, to be "twice as wide, twice as high."  The County approved that expansion, but the courts struck it down.  

This scenario has since played out again and again until the County finally denied the latest proposal, a much scaled-down expansion that would nevertheless bring a towering pile of waste right up to the edge of the highway.  Chances are whoever loses at LUBA will appeal to the next court.

Problems at the dump? Here's how to report

Waste Management has a new contact number for reporting problems at Riverbend Landfill.

As noted on the company's website, people who smelling stinky odors or witness litter flying from garbage-hauling vehicles or spot untarped loads heading to the dump can call 1-877-686-9328 to file a report.

Reports can, and should, also be made to the following:

• Nick Godfrey, Riverbend's on-site manager, 503-472-8788, NGodfrey@wm.com
  
• Ashley Watkins, Yamhill County's Solid Waste & Recycling Coordinator, 503-434-7516, watkinsa@co.yamhill.or.us
• Yuki Puram, air quality permit writer at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, puram.yuki@deq.state.or.us
  

Another year, another dump lawsuit

As reported last fall, Waste Management has taken Yamhill County's decision to deny its application to expand Riverbend Landfill to court.  Now the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) has set a briefing schedule for that appeal.  Riverbend must file its opening arguments by January 15, with the County's response due by February 10.  The County will most likely rely on landfill opponents, including the Stop the Dump Coalition, to prepare the legal arguments.

Waste Management (WM) is expected to make the same unsuccessful arguments it used to try to persuade the County Board of Commissioners to approve expansion.  WM attorney Tommy Brooks argued then that most of the facts had been decided by previous Boards, including the benefit and necessity of having a local landfill and the appropriateness of the landfill at its present site.

According to Brooks, this particular iteration of the landfill fight involved only two issues:  whether Riverbend could control litter escaping from the landfill to the point where it had a less-than-significant impact on the neighboring McPhillips farm; and whether various minor impacts to area farms, when added together, amounted to a "significant" impact on any single farm.

To solve the litter problem, Riverbend devised a new litter management plan.  Expansion opponents, however, shredded the so-called plan, pointing out that all the "evidence" that the plan would work despite vagaries of wind and weather was gathered during 80 minutes over 6 days in one two-week period in April, 2020.  Despite nearly half a year passing since the most recent court decision, WM made no effort to measure any parameter affecting litter escape at other times of year.

Moreover, the so-called "evidence" consisted only of wind speed readings, with no data provided about location (other than generalized descriptions, eg, "haul road above plant"), elevation, topography, wind direction, or wind speed before or after the time of the reading.  This despite WM's own submittals showing that each of these factors can contribute to litter escape.

With respect to the cumulative effect of various insignificant impacts, WM ducked its legally-mandated burden of proof as it has tried to do throughout these proceedings.  Instead of pointing to specific evidence in the record to support the claim that various impacts were not cumulatively significant, WM asked the County to require farmers to prove that such impacts when added together were significant.

Burden of proof is an important legal tenet.  A party with this burden must produce evidence to support its claims.  Contrary to WM's argument, opposing parties have no obligation to produce evidence to dispute the claims.

Unless WM can come up with more cogent arguments, based on material and legal theories presented to the County, it should lose this appeal.