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.