"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.
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