Petition: Coffin Butte Landfill – We need a PLAN!

By signing this petition, we are telling Commissioners Nancy Wyse, Xan Augerot and Pat Malone to OPPOSE ANY expansion of the Coffin Butte Landfill before Benton County completes a thorough, detailed waste management plan that focuses on future resilience and includes alternatives for decreasing and redistributing materials from the waste stream.

Background:
If it seems like the dump has been getting bigger faster, if it seems like there is always more garbage truck traffic and more litter, that’s because there is! For the past twenty years, other counties in Western Oregon have been closing down their landfills. Now their household and industrial waste is trucked in to Benton County. What do they know that we don’t know?

History:
March 29, 1977 is the last time a waste management plan was completed for Benton County. In it, the landfill was projected to close in the year 2000.

December 7, 2021 – Benton County Planning Commission unanimously denied LU-21-047, the application by Republic Services to expand Coffin Butte Landfill, finding that it would cause significant harm to Benton County.

Current Activity:
Republic Services says they intend to submit a new application to expand Coffin Butte Landfill north of Corvallis “soon.”

According to Oregon Department of Environmental Quality estimates, household waste from Benton County is less than 7% of what comes into the dump each year. If expansion is approved, Republic Services will be free to haul even more waste — household, commercial and industrial — into Benton County.

People say, “Trash has to go somewhere. If we don’t let them expand the dump, what alternatives are there?”

The answer is, we don’t know, because Benton County has no waste management plan. Other counties have plans that guide them through their options. It’s absurd to expand this landfill before completing a thorough plan, including alternatives for decreasing and redistributing the waste stream.

Republic Services is in a big hurry to get its expansion plan approved because of “contractual obligations to dozens of parties” outside Benton County. This is Republic’s own problem — not Benton County’s. We should not be threatened and rushed to make an irreversible decision to solve the poor planning and over-commitment issues of a huge national corporation.

Expansion would be a climate change disaster. Coffin Butte Landfill already produces lots of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and less than 60% of it is captured, according to Oregon DEQ.

Let’s take the time this important issue demands. In its latest annual report, Republic Services estimated that the existing landfill has capacity for at least 18 more years. That gives us plenty of time for a thorough study of what’s best for our county over the long run. It’s our future, not Republic’s, that’s important here.

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