Riverbend rejection unanimous

By DAVID BATES

Of the News-Register

The Yamhill County Planning Commission dealt the Riverbend Landfill a sharp blow Thursday, voting 7-0 to reject an expansion the company maintains is vital to meeting the county's long-term waste-disposal needs.

The advisory vote, greeted with applause by landfill opponents, puts Riverbend on the defensive in the next step in the process - a February hearing before Yamhill County Board of Commissioners, which has the final local say on an issue virtually certain to end up in state hands on eventual appeal.

Some of the commissioners offered praise and even sympathy to the company. But all seven echoed criticisms and concerns raised by many citizens in public hearings late last year.

"I think Yamhill County needs a landfill," said Commissioner John Abrams. But he said, "I'm inclined to think that it doesn't need this landfill."

Voting with Abrams were Commissioners Alan Halstead, Michael Sherwood, David Polite, Marjorie Ehry, Robert White and Darryl Garrettson.

In recommending denial, the commission, chaired by Garrettson, sided with the majority of citizens who testified in two marathon hearings in November and December. But it rejected the counsel of county planners, who opened Thursday's meeting with a recommendation that two of the project's three components be approved.

Arguably, they also rejected the counsel of voters, who rejected a November ballot measure designed to derail the expansion on environmental grounds.

However, the measure was framed in terms of flood plain protection, so did not address the expansion directly. And some elements in the community opposed the measure not because they supported Riverbend's expansion inherently, rather because they felt that expansion deserved consideration through a formal land-use hearings process.

The complicated package included applications seeking approval of a flood plain work plan, a zoning and comprehensive plan change and a design for layout and function of the site.

Senior Planner Ken Friday said the staff was recommending approval of the first two as submitted, after spending weeks grappling with the major one - the zone change and plan amendment. He said it was recommending changes in some of the design provisions.

Friday said the staff was particularly concerned about the adequacy of visual screening proposed for fill destined eventually to rise to 400 feet above sea level - about 250 feet above the surrounding terrain.

"We are not saying that these factors can not be addressed," he said, adding, "At this point, we do not believe that the visual impacts of the proposed landfill expansion have been adequately addressed."

Friday went on to say, "This is a difficult recommendation, made more difficult because there were good arguments submitted on both sides."

The commissioners, however, weren't willing to accept any of the three elements in Riverbend's expansion package.

The planning commission is only empowered to advise the county commissioners, who have the final say. So no matter how it would have developed, the matter would have moved on.

However, the unanimity of the panel and sweeping nature of its decision evened a playing field that voters appeared late last year to have tipped decidedly Riverbend's way. In terms of major milestones, the high-stakes contents between Riverbend and its critics can now be considered tied 1-1.

Riverbend's parent company, national disposal giant Waste Management Inc. of Houston, spent nearly half a million dollars to defeat November's environmentally based attack.

It mounted a campaign raising the specter of higher garbage rates should the rapidly filling facility not be permitted to expand. And it was rewarded with a solid victory at the polls.

But if that gave the expansion project an air of inevitability, the seven commissioners brought it crashing back down to earth Thursday. Abrams seemed to speak for them all when he said he had a hard time "sentencing the neighbors out there" to an ever-expanding waste site.

Riverbend has operated on its current 86-acre site, three miles west of McMinnville on Highway 18, for 25 years. Company officials estimate it has seven years of space left.

The proposed 98-acre expansion would accommodate the disposal needs of the landfill's existing service area, which extends into the Portland Metro Area, for another 20 to 30 years.

Some on the commission clearly took issue with the fact that roughly half of the garbage deposited at the facility is trucked in from outside the county.

That frustration was expressed succinctly by Garrettson, who said that Riverbend's need for expansion was necessitated by garbage from Portland, yet the county was effectively prohibited from looking beyond its own borders for an alternative.

If the need for expansion were strictly local, he said, the existing facility would be sufficient to meet it for a long time. "Where in our zoning ordinance do we have to accommodate that waste?" he asked.

However, the company noted having big outside customers served to subsidize the operation and provide efficiency of scale, keeping local rates low. It said local volume isn't sufficient to support such a costly operation, given today's exacting environmental requirements.

The commissioners didn't object to Riverbend and its management itself, rather to having any landfill operating alongside the South Yamhill River, particularly one proposed to grow to twice its current height, becoming much more widely visible.

"I think they've done a really good job making it as visually acceptable as possible," Ehry said. "I think they basically try to be good neighbors. But I drove by the other day, and I wouldn't want to live there."

Although an undercurrent of anti-corporate sentiment was evident in some of the comments from citizen opponents, most complaints were about tangible effects - the persistent odor, the continual truck traffic and the visual spectacle of a mound of garbage rising in the middle of wine country.

Commission sentiments reflected that.

"We really do have something special going on, and I'm sorry to say that the landfill is not compatible," Polite said. "I think that the expansion of the landfill will be harmful and costly in the long run."

Riverbend Manager George Duvendack conceded the company's disappointment with the decision, but vowed to continue. "We believe that this is an important application and look forward to continuing the process with the county commissioners," he said.

Ramsey McPhillips, whose sprawling farm lies adjacent to Riverbend, has taken a lead role in opposing the expansion. He was elated, saying the vote reflects a potential transformation in how Yamhill County deals with its garbage.

"If we turn this thing down, which it looks like we're going to do, then we become part of the problem because the landfill will close down," Garrettson said. He said it was incumbent on the community to rally around innovative new ways of waste reduction, re-use and disposal.

Abrams echoed him, saying, "I think the days of being a throw-away society are quickly coming to an end."

"It's a new day and flood plain landfills are out," McPhillips declared. "Making domestic fuel and energy from our trash is in."

He said, "The Yamhill County Planning Commission gets it. I really hope the three county commissioners do, too."

The county commissioners are planning to begin their review of the matter Feb. 12 in Room 103 of the McMinnville Community Center.

Of course, the fight isn't expected to end there. Any decision the commissioners make is virtually certain to be appealed to the state. And that means final resolution could be months - or even years - away.