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.