Soooo, like two days after Benton County approved making a toxic cesspool of a poorly run damn landfill bigger, we here at The Corvallis Advocate received a press release about said cesspool. It was from Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ. It was about what they call air quality compliance issues.
When you dig beyond the press release, the actual notice talks about landfill gas emissions. Emissions that should not be confused with the Benton County Board of Commissioners’ deliberations, or their approval of the landfill’s expansion.
Ooh, did we just write that? Somebody should edit that. It’s not very professional. Let’s just move onto the press release, shall we.
“The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued a pre-enforcement notice today [Nov. 6] to Coffin Butte Landfill, which is owned and operated by Valley Landfills Inc. The facility is located north of Corvallis along Highway 99,” said the press release.
DEQ’s release goes on to say, “The pre-enforcement notice addresses air quality compliance issues identified through document reviews and inspections conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and DEQ in June 2022, June 2024, and through further analysis completed in fall 2025. In the notice, DEQ outlines the violations, requests additional information, and directs the company to take corrective actions. The pre-enforcement notice doesn’t establish a civil penalty or include orders.”
What’s next
The agency says the pre-enforcement notice serves as formal notification that the matter is being referred to DEQ’s Office of Compliance and Enforcement for a formal enforcement order and penalty assessment, which is expected in the coming months.
What will come after that – who the hell knows. Whatever it is, it’ll probably be toxic, and we probably won’t know much about it. After all, nobody is really monitoring the landfill too comprehensively, and it doesn’t seem there’s been any prior enforcement action that has been so drastic that its owner has changed their ways.
When Benton County Commissioner Pat Malone voted to approve the Coffin Butte landfill expansion earlier this week, he said he believed the County could adequately monitor and enforce conditions of the dump’s permit. But then, it has taken the DEQ until now to act on findings from 2022.
Could the County do better than that. Sure, maybe. After all, we all like to think the best of our future selves. But then, potato chips and candy happen. Translation, we’re not holding our breath, even if the stench of all this has us holding our noses.
Dig a little deeper
For more information about DEQ’s regulation of the landfill please visit our Coffin Butte Landfill web page. Here’s the link to the pre-enforcement notice that talks about landfill gas emissions and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Also, because they have nothing to hide, the Coffin Butte Landfill is owned by Valley Landfills Inc. which is owned by Republic Services. And you may already know all of that, but we have to say it, because this is a newspaper.
By Mike Suarez
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