Northwest Oregon’s favorite dumpster, Benton County, could be steps closer to cleaning up its act. County staff are now recommending against the proposal to expand the Coffin Butte Landfill. And we’ll get to that in a minute, but first, let’s catch you up.
Last November, the Benton County Community Development Department took a very different view. They recommended approving the dump’s expansion. Subsequently, the County’s Board of Commissioners voted to do exactly that. But then something happened that just didn’t smell right.
Only two days after the Commissioners’ approval, Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality issued a Pre-Enforcement Notice against Coffin Butte and its owner, Republic Services.
Said notice detailed air quality violations. This included a recent history of EPA inspections that found methane exceedances at the existing landfill that required corrective actions. It also detailed seven Class I violations related to air quality monitoring, site operations, and get this fragrance lovers, gas control.
Anyhoo, all of this sent our Benton County Commissioners into a very understandable tailspin. And on December 16, they voted to rescind and reconsider their November 17 approval of Republic’s application to expand the landfill. This, of course, meant all new evidence gathering and hearings, and a whole new review and recommendation by Benton County’s Community Development Department, who went into a presto-change-o dive of their own.
Fast forward to Now, the New Staff Recommendation
Writing about Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality Pre-Enforcement Notification, the Community Development new report says, “Staff finds that the November DEQ PEN calls into question some of the application’s odor model assumptions”, and, “The application does not provide sufficient analysis of adjacent odor-sensitive land uses such as the neighboring horse therapy business and residences to demonstrate that the landfill expansion will not seriously interfere with those uses on adjacent properties.”
The report goes on to say, “Therefore, the Applicant has not met its burden of proof to show that the proposed use will not seriously interfere with adjacent land uses. Staff recommends denial of [Republic’s application, case number] LU-24-027.”
The report also says the proposed expansion is inconsistent with the character of the area and its zoning. Other issues include fire risks and inadequate fire suppression resources, and several environmental and human health concerns. There are also pesky winds that blow trash from the dump onto adjacent properties, which is apparently seen as less than neighborly, or for livestock, potentially fatal. And, no, nobody is really monitoring groundwater contamination adequately.
So, what is next. On Tuesday, March 3, the Benton County Board of Commissioners will deliberate. They have scheduled a 40-minute hearing. They will take no further testimony, the deadline for that has passed. They also plan to set a date for a final decision. At the moment, their deadline is March 17.
Analysis and opinion
This is our analysis and opinion. The Coffin Butte Landfill serves several Oregon counties, only about 10% of the incoming waste comes from Benton County. Other county boards of commissioners in the region have voted to close their landfills in recent years.
Coffin Butte would at some point need to be expanded again if it is to remain the regional landfill that it has become. The site now spans 740 acres. Of that, only 178 acres are used for waste disposal. In 2021, Republic unsuccessfully sought to expand waste operations by about 140 acres. The current application is for an expansion of 70 acres. Republic owns the landfill through a subsidiary, Valley Landfills Inc.
When the dump was put into service in the 1940s, nobody would have foreseen that it would grow to its present size. In more recent years, it has been assumed it would eventually reach capacity and be closed.
Also in recent years, we’ve learned how landfills impact human health and the environment, and that they need monitoring.
Republic is no exception, they have absolutely proved they need to be watchdogged.
But our small-little county doesn’t begin to approach having the resources to sufficiently monitor. That leaves the EPA and DEQ to do the job, and they have demonstrably fell short both in terms of monitoring and enforcement. Both are only now pursuing years old violations, and there is good evidence that those and other violations are ongoing.
All of that will get worse. Federal policy has changed; state budgets are constricting. The EPA and DEQ will not be adding capacity, probably the opposite will happen.
Pressingly, Republic is seeking to expand in an area increasingly seen as a good option for housing starts. Even now, about 1,000 new homes are planned in adjacent Adair Village, and that may grow. Increasing our local housing supply is a priority.
In short, we think the landfill should be closed. We know that will set the region scrambling for solutions, but we believe that may be a good thing. It’s an opportunity to look fifty or a hundred years into the future, which government needs to learn to do, and plan thoughtfully.
Alongside, the state may do well to consider if a public or hybrid public-private system would be better. Given Republic’s profitability, we wonder if consumers could get the same services for less, and we’d also like to see better public health and environmental responsiveness.
But, regardless of the outcome for the region, we believe the Benton County Board of Commissioners is obligated to reject the landfill’s expansion based on its impact on the surrounding area and our shared community’s future generations.
Debunking
It has also been argued that trash collection fees will increase if Republic doesn’t have its way. That may be true. A quick search showed consumers could see increases from 8% to an unlikely extreme of 20%. But consider the public health impacts and costs, which will be paid locally. And then less immediately, the almost inevitable future environmental clean-up after Republic leaves, possibly off-loading its responsibility onto subsidiary, Valley Landfills, and then putting it into bankruptcy. In our estimation, this is not a good long-term bet, and given what’s at stake, we don’t believe it’s a good idea to be betting at all.
Also, NIMBY invocations have been cast in this debate, and we’re calling foul. This is not just a few houses on a bunch of open fields that everyone knew would sometime be, not open fields. Nope, the dump means substantial unmitigable risks to air and groundwater quality, risks to the basics of human health. It is a fire risk adjacent to forest lands. It’s not a new apartment building.
By Mike Suarez and Steven J. Schultz
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