Newberg Graphic Online

Final testimony entered on Riverbend Landfill issue

Land use — Waste Management and opponents make their cases on alternatives study; commission will reconvene

• By: David Sale  
• Published: 11/6/2009 3:35:46 PM

    As of Wednesday, the record is closed on testimony regarding the proposal to expand Riverbend Landfill, leaving both sides to await the decision of the Board of County Commissioners. Their hearing on the issue will resume at 2 p.m. Monday in the county courthouse.
    Since last year, when officials from Waste Management first proposed the 109-acre expansion, the topic has been fraught with controversy. Riverbend officials requested the expansion based on predictions that the landfill would reach capacity in 2014, with a consequent increase in local garbage rates. Opponents, many neighboring property owners, hope to develop alternative disposal methods to mitigate the landfill’s impact on their property — and to stem the flow of out-of-county waste that makes up nearly two-thirds of Riverbend’s deposits.
    The application itself — which combines a rezone request, state land use goal exemption and wetlands diversion — was the subject of voluminous testimony before the county planning commission, which ultimately recommended its denial.
    This recent round of testimony is confined to issues arising from a third-party study from Zia Consulting Engineers, requested by the board of commissioners, to estimate residential rate increases should the landfill be taken out of service. These were determined to be between 9 percent and 16 percent for Newberg Garbage residential customers, depending on the alternative landfill to which the waste was shipped.
    The report also discussed the use of alternatives to landfilling waste — such as incineration, waste-to-energy generation, anaerobic digestion and other green technologies, though without identifying a preferred alternative.
    Many of these technologies have not been developed sufficiently for a large-scale operation like Riverbend, argued Waste Management attorney James Benedict in a filing to the board.
    Regarding one alternative touted, Benedict wrote: “Zia was right to reject syngas (biofuel generation) technologies from further consideration because in its current state, (it) cannot process the county’s mix of solid waste. ... If the technology still requires a pilot project, then it must not be ready for full-scale, commercial operation.”
    However, as leading opponent Ramsey McPhillips noted in his statement to the commissioners, other sites have developed successful commercial alternatives.
    “The currently viable aerobic digestion co-composting facility located in Walton, N.Y., processes all their county’s municipal solid waste (and bio-solids) with a current diversion rate of 70 percent,” he wrote. “What little trash is not processed through this system could easily be shipped to a (Columbia) Gorge landfill or eventually sent to an (incineration) facility.”
    Regardless of alternative technology, McPhillips added, the chance for the county to renegotiate a solid waste disposal strategy on its own terms was sufficient reason to reject the application.
    “To accept the (expansion) application as it now stands and hope that the county can later negotiate an agreement that includes a schedule for an alternative replacement of the landfill before it has filled the total requested expansion, is not a legal option of this particular application,” he wrote. “Why approve a 20-year landfill expansion if all we need is a few more years of the existing one to buy the necessary time to plan and institute an alternative? ...
    “Unlike Yamhill County, which grants 10-year-long franchise agreements, Metro (Portland) reviews all their agreements every two years and could simply direct that some of its present garbage goes to an alternate transfer station, thereby giving us back the ... capacity that was always meant to be for the hometown disposal storage provider.”

  (log in to rate)