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.