Broken Promises

In the 1980 documents that preceded the approval of Riverbend Landfill at its current site, and again when Waste Management took over the operation, many promises were made to the community.  A sampling is listed below, followed by the reality of what has actually occurred at the site.

Promise:  “The site will be kept in agriculture except for approximately 20 acres which will be taken out of agricultural production for landfilling purposes and when these 20 acres are filled, a new 20 acres will be utilized; the landfilled area will be re-converted to agricultural uses."[1]

Reality:  The current landfill covers 86 acres, none of which is now, or ever again can or will be, farmed.[2]  The total operations area of Riverbend now covers over 200 acres of high value farmland on the banks of the S. Yamhill River.  The proposed expansion will cover 29 additional acres of landfilling.

Promise:  "The floodplain area next to the river will have been lifted out of the floodplain and become better farm ground."[3]

Reality:  The landfill has excavated large quantities of soil from the flood plain area for use as daily cover on the landfill.[4]

Promise:  "No sight contamination will result from the use" as a landfill.[1]

Reality:  The landfill, at its current 135 ft height, is highly visible, from Highway 18, all surrounding roads and land areas for miles.[6]

Promise:  "Frequent cover virtually eliminates odor."[7]

Reality:  The landfill “odor shed” reaches out onto the surrounding area for miles and can be smelled as far away as downtown McMinnville (2+ miles distant); it is often strongest at night when cover, if it were the answer, should be covering all the working faces.[8]
 

 Promise:   "The gas system is operating properly" (4-28-2016); "there are no issues with the landfill gas collection system" (10-26-2016); "all systems are functioning properly without any shutdowns or issues" (11-11-2016, 11-14-2016),;"we take odor complaints very seriously" (7-25-2017, 2-10-18); "all temporary cover and closure activities are performed with DEQ oversight" (6-4-2019); "all areas being filled are subject to DEQ oversight" (6-6-2019) and "approved and regulated by the DEQ" (8-28-2019). In April 2020, Riverbend sent the community "a brief update on what we’ve done in the last six months and our plans for the next six months" that did not mention the NOV.  [5]

Reality:    Riverbend's operation of its gas collection system in at least the four years 2016-2019 resulted in potentially serious harm to air quality in Yamhill County.

In January 2020 the Environmental Protection Agency issued a Notice of Violation (NOV) to Riverbend citing the landfill for gas emissions in violation of its air quality permit going back to at least 2015.

According to the NOV, Riverbend failed to comply with basic monitoring requirements including failure to discover and report "multiple exceedances of 500 PPM methane" during required Surface Emission Monitoring (SEM); failure to report or inspect "areas of cracks or seeps in the cover" or "areas of distressed vegetation and cracks or seeps in the cover"; failure to maintain landfill cover integrity; allowing water to equal or exceed 50% of well height at multiple wells; failure to maintain cover "to the extent practicable" to collect and control landfill gas; failure to "monitor well RVBDV210 for pressure, temperature, and nitrogen between October 2016 and October 2018."  The NOV noted that the violations appeared to be ongoing. 

Promise:  Noise will be "about the same as the farm machinery." [7]

Reality:  Noise, coming from loud back-up signal bells on trucks and other equipment, tipping/dumping activity, and landfill vehicles and machinery working the face, begins as early as 4:30 am and often continues long after operations supposedly cease.[10]

Promise:  "The surrounding property owners do not object to the landfill operation."[11]

Reality:  

• In 1980 neighboring property owners appeared at the Board of Commissioners' hearing on the ordinance adopting the Comprehensive Plan amendment that allowed the landfill to be sited and strongly objected to the change in the Comprehensive Plan.[12] 
• Neighbors proposed a county ballot measure in 1992 whose purpose was to oppose Riverbend becoming a Title V Regional landfill; they won the local vote but the measure was disqualified on a technicality. 
• In 2008, when Riverbend filed their first application for expansion, community members, no longer just “the neighbors”, formed Waste Not of Yamhill County to publicly mount a campaign against expansion and press for closure of Riverbend when it reached capacity in 2014.   
• In 2012 Waste Not of Yamhill changed its name to Stop the Dump Coalition to recognize the inclusion of our many business and individual partners in the campaign.

Promise:   Riverbend predicted that it would import 850,000 tons of garbage in the ten years from 1992-2001 and a total of 1,042,450 tons in the thirty-year period 1992-2021.[13]

Reality:   Until Metro stopped sending waste to Riverbend in January 2020, the landfill imported  ~525,000 tons of municipal solid waste each year, 70% of which came from outside Yamhill County.  

Promise:    

The landfill's "available volume" is 4,360,000 tons.[15]

Reality:   The current permitted capacity of the landfill is 12,735,200 cubic yards, more than eleven times the predicted available volume.* During the period 1993-2006, the landfill accepted 5,748,109 tons of waste.[6] After 2006 and each year through 2014, Riverbend accepted more than 600,000 tons of waste.

Promise:  The landfill will reach capacity in ~2040.  

Reality: 

• If Riverbend had not accepted the significant volume of out-of-county waste it has since 1993, the life of the landfill would have been 38 years, i.e. the  landfill would not have reached capacity until mid-2031.
• The landfill reached capacity on the original approved footprint in 2014 and began infilling waste behind the newly-added MSE-berm early in 2015. The berm section reached capacity in early 2017, when Riverbend received permission  to expand vertically, adding an additional 490,000 cubic yards of capacity. In 2020, the landfill cut back the waste it imports and could keep the landfill open approximately 12 more years, assuming average waste volumes of less than 300,000 tons per year.**

* Per DEQ's permit notice for vertical expansion, March 2017: "Its [landfill's] permitted capacity is approximately 12,245,200 cubic yards. Under the current permit, the landfill is expected to reach capacity in mid-2017."

Per Bob Schwarz, 3-6-19: "The vertical expansion (the final grading plan modification) that we [DEQ] approved in 2017 provided for additional capacity of 490,000 cubic yards."

12,245,200 plus 490,000 = 12,735,200 cubic yards

** Applicant’s Initial Remand Submittal, July 8, 2020, at page 4

Promise:  RLI will institute random sampling of loads brought to the landfill and will remove prohibited waste.[22]

​Reality: 

• Riverbend officials have publicly stated that no pre-sorting of municipal solid waste/non-construction-debris waste is done before loads are either trucked to the landfill or when they are dumped at the working face. [22]
• Until recently, no neighbor using the landfill for waste disposal reported seeing any monitoring or removal of prohibited waste, including TVs, or appliances and other easily-recycled materials, from the working face of the dump. 

Now, random monitoring occurs but one still sees items that are either outright prohibited or could have been removed for recycling prior to being “dumped”.

Footnotes:

1. Exhibit A to Ordinance No. 236, p 8
2. Plan Amendment and Zone Change Narrative, June 2008, p 36
3. Exhibit A to Ordinance No. 236, p 4
4. Personal observation and DEQ excavation permit correspondence
5.  From emails written by former Riverbend environmental officer Jeff O'Leary and current landfill manager Nicholas Godfrey. 
6. Exhibit A to Ordinance No. 236, p 6
7. Personal observation; discussions with neighbors; comments from persons attending recent air quality meetings with DEQ and landfill representatives
8. Not used
9. Personal observation and discussions with neighbors
10. Exhibit A to Ordinance No. 236, p 13
11. Ordinance No. 236 text
12. Riverbend Landfill Responses to Landfill Town Meeting Questions, June 11, 1992, pp 1-2
13. Not used.
14. Riverbend Landfill Responses to Landfill Town Meeting Questions, June 11, 1992, p 2
15. Not used
16. Not used. 
17. Not used
18. Zia Report, p 5
19. Not used
20. Not used
21. Riverbend Landfill Responses to Landfill Town Meeting Questions, June 11, 1992, p 6 (Q26)