Since the mid-1980s, Marion county has been sending its trash to an incinerator, now known as Reworld Marion Inc. It’s the only one in the state, and the county has partnered with it from from the beginning. The company recently filed objections with Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality around environmental regulations the state passed aimed at improving human health by reducing toxic emissions from the facility. Several months ago Reworld announced it would be closing its Oregon facility and would not be accepting any more trash as of Dec. 31, 2024.
In this undated photo provided by Beyond Toxics, Reworld Marion Inc waste incinerator is pictured in Brooks, Oregon. It is the state's only such facility and the only one on the entire West Coast that accepts medical waste.
Courtesy Beyond Toxics
The county had to turn instead to the Coffin Butte Landfill in neighboring Benton County. But that landfill is filling up and has applied to expand its capacity. It’s also been under scrutiny for methane leaks that environmental groups, lawmakers and regulators say have not been adequately addressed.
Joining us to discuss the problems inherent in current waste disposal methods are: Lisa Arkin, the executive director of Beyond Toxics, which is part of the state’s Clean Air Coalition; and Oregon State Senator Sara Gelser Blouin, a Democrat whose district covers South Salem and unincorporated parts of Linn, Benton and Marion Counties.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. For nearly 40 years, Marion County has been sending its trash to an incinerator, now known as Reworld Marion. It’s the only trash incinerator in the state, but its days seem to be numbered.
Reworld will be closing its Oregon facility and, as of December 31, is no longer accepting trash from Marion County. This appears to be connected to the company’s ongoing legal challenge. Reworld says that Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality is misinterpreting a new state law and is requiring emissions monitoring that is impossible. What this means in practice is that Marion County will now be sending its trash to the Coffin Butte Landfill in neighboring Benton County. But that landfill is filling up and it’s already been under its own scrutiny for methane leaks.
For more on this complicated situation, I’m joined by Lisa Arkin, the executive director of Beyond Toxics, and Democratic State Senator Sara Gelser Blouin, whose district includes Corvallis, Albany and South Salem. It’s great to have both of you on Think Out Loud.
Sara Gelser Blouin: Thanks for having us.
Lisa Arkin: Dave, thanks for having us here. Appreciate it.
Miller: Lisa, we can talk about the environmental impacts of landfills themselves in a little bit. But just first, are you celebrating the impending closure of Oregon’s last trash incinerator?
Arkin: Yes, I absolutely am. I’m celebrating the closure, and it’s not that unusual. Reworld Marion has closed incinerators in California. And other incinerators around the country are closing. It’s an outdated method of dealing with our trash. It’s highly polluting and we can do much better than burn it.
Miller: What goes into the air when you burn trash, besides greenhouse gas emissions?
Arkin: Oh my goodness, there’s a host of things, which is why an incinerator like Reworld in Oregon has to have a pretty robust air pollution discharge permit. From their smokestacks, they are emitting pretty dangerous chemicals such as dioxin [C4H4O2], which some people might remember as an ingredient in Agent Orange. It is known to be a cancer causing chemical. They also emit heavy metals which are known to harm especially children’s health. There’s no safe level of lead [Pb], but they also emit mercury [Hg], cadmium [Cd], chromium [Cr] and a host of other nine very important metals. Also things called volatile organic compounds that are bad for our health, again, can cause cancer or reproductive disorders, but are also photochemically reactive in the atmosphere, and contribute to smog and climate change.
Miller: Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell has said that it is a recent 2023 air quality monitoring law, S.B. 488, that it seems led the company to back out of operating in Oregon. We did reach out to the company for a statement. We have not heard back yet from them. But what have you heard about their reasons for eventually ceasing operation in Oregon?
Arkin: We’ve heard a number of things. I would think that one of the things we’ve heard that is most important is, as you mentioned in your introduction, Dave, this facility is already four decades old. Its equipment is outdated. They have a lot of problems. They’ve been cited by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality for air quality emission violations. It’s expensive to upgrade and probably cheaper to close it down. So they’ve reached the end of their useful lifetime as an incinerator.
I think that’s the main driving force, myself. I don’t think it’s the legislation. Other incinerators are measuring their emissions with greater detail and scrutiny, and more frequently. And I think Reworld Marion could be doing the same.
Miller: As the Statesman Journal reported recently, Marion County trash is no longer going to this incinerator. It’s going to a landfill and we’ll talk more about that in just a bit. But the incinerator, they’ve signed this agreement, as I understand it, that they can continue to operate for the next six months. So what are they going to be burning?
Arkin: That is an excellent question and we’ve been asking the same of the DEQ. Should they be given a new permit? What are they allowed to burn? Are they only going to accept medical waste, which is one of the most polluting things you can burn and very high in dioxin levels? Are they only going to accept industrial waste? Which, again, causes quite a variety of dangerous emissions. What are they going to burn if not Marion County’s municipal trash?
Miller: Let’s turn to the future of that Marion County municipal trash. What can you tell us about Coffin Butte, where the county’s waste is now being sent?
Arkin: Coffin Butte is located in Benton County, and it’s always had a relationship with the incinerator in the past. Coffin Butte took the residual ash from burning trash at the incinerator and used it to cover the open face of their landfill on many occasions, which is a highly toxic practice. The two communities that are concerned, the first one about the incinerator in Marion County and the second community in the vicinity of Corvallis in Adair Village, understand this toxic relationship. They really are working together, in coalition, to tackle the pollution problems and the waste problems from both incineration and landfill operations.
But the landfill has a number of its own toxic problems. It releases methane gas [CH4], which is a potent climate driver, 80 times more potent than just carbon dioxide [CO2]. Entrained in those molecules of the methane gas, travel other pollutants, such as volatile organic compounds and particulate matter, which we know is very bad for our respiratory systems. Also recently, researchers are finding that the methane plumes that emit from landfills carry along with it PFAS, otherwise known as the forever chemicals or a class of chemicals that do not degrade in the environment and are proving hazardous to human health.
Miller: We asked folks about their thoughts about the situation. We got a lot of comments on Facebook specifically about this landfill – more about the landfill than about the end of the incinerator.
Becky Merja wrote [on Facebook]: “Each year, more and more residents from miles around the landfill experience dump days – days when the odor from the landfill gasses prevents them from being outside their homes, working their farms or otherwise enjoying the outdoors. To name a few locations, I’ve experienced ‘landfill gas stench’ at my home (five miles from the landfill); in Airlie, six miles away; in North Albany, seven miles away; and at Good Samaritan Hospital, eight miles away.”
Senator Gelser Blouin, can you describe the bill that you’ll be introducing this session about landfill emissions?
Gelser Blouin: Yes, thank you again for having us today. The Senate bill that I am introducing is a little bit different than the issue of incineration. What it looks at is how we can get the best, most accurate information about methane emissions in particular, that are coming from landfills. Right now, when monitoring is done, when we try to see how much methane is coming off of that landfill, it’s done by a person who goes out with something … And I picture my grandfather who had this metal detector to go find treasures. And they just walk across the landfill and measure in that way. There’s portions of the landfill that they can’t get to.
We have new technology, things like sniffer drones, that can go out without a human and get to all parts of the landfill. So this measure would require that advanced technology be used to ensure we have the most accurate monitoring. And then it also would require that when reporting is submitted, it’s done in a data format that is easier for people to read and access. That would hopefully allow us to act to mitigate problems before it was required.
Miller: Lisa Arkin, can you give us a sense – if the unknowns are even known – of how aware we are of the methane releases from landfills in Oregon and around the country?
Arkin: There is awareness. The EPA has recently released a report saying that undetected methane releases from landfill are much greater than anyone ever anticipated. This is because,
as Senator Gelser Blouin was describing, the way we monitor for methane leaks right now relies on a human crisscrossing back and forth across acres and acres of landfill surface. It’s very hit and miss. But when we use satellite technology or drones, we’re seeing a much larger pattern of methane leaks from everything, including a broken gas collection valve or system. A pipe might be broken, there might be a rip in the covering tarp that’s allowing methane to ooze out. And these are actually collecting in plumes and then moving with the air over our communities.
So again, I’ll repeat, the EPA is quite worried that we’re not detecting all that we should be detecting to understand the full impact of landfill methane. And already, the EPA has reported that municipal waste landfills, like Coffin Butte and others we have in Oregon, are the country’s third largest source of methane emissions. That’s phenomenal. I mean, that’s third largest, in addition to when you consider the gas and oil industry. And by the way, the gas and oil industry is moving toward these advanced technology detection systems as well, because it’s more accurate and you can take action faster than you can by waiting for someone, which could be one or two weeks to walk back and forth across a landfill. A drone, such as the one the center mentioned, can do that in 50% of the time and it can save money in the long run. But it can also improve how we collect gas, which is then used to generate energy. So it’s a win-win, for sure.
Miller: Sara Gelser Blouin, monitoring, getting better data about leaks, in and of itself, that’s not a method of reducing leaks. It just tells us what is escaping. Do you see this monitoring as a first step before, say, new requirements for landfill operators that they would have to follow for actual emissions reductions as opposed to emissions awareness?
Gelser Blouin: I don’t think it’s possible to truly solve problems if we don’t know what the situation is. The goal of this bill is to create a situation where we all have information that we can count on. We can look at that information, agree that it is true and come up with the best strategies to address that. I think it would be premature to say what that outcome would be. But I think this is consistent with what both Senator Merkley and Senator Wyden have been saying to my community at their town halls, which is that we need data. We need excellent, transparent, reliable data, so that we can understand what is happening and we can respond appropriately.
Miller: Lisa Arkin, we got a number of comments on our Facebook page about leachate. This is what Joel Geier wrote: “They’re collecting 30 million gallons per year of leachate, a kind of toxic ‘garbage tea,’ which is loaded with arsenic [As], heavy metals and PFAS. This gets trucked to wastewater treatment plants in Salem, Kaizer and Corvallis, which were never designed to deal with these toxic chemicals because they’re built to deal with what goes down your toilet.”
What is leachate and what do you see in terms of the problems with the way this liquid is currently regulated?
Arkin: Dave, for that question, a lot of people aren’t aware that leachate is created at landfills. Basically, especially at a landfill on the west side of our state where it rains a lot, it generates a lot of leachate. As rain percolates through that mountain of trash, it’s picking up all the chemicals from the myriad of materials that are decomposing in that landfill. And again, if someone is throwing away a half-used can of pesticide, some paint residue or something that has PFAS coating – that’s the forever chemical – all of that is then carried along with this drippy water.
Landfills of a certain size, I should say, are required to put in pipes to collect this leachate. They then pipe the leachate, highly toxic, to tanker trucks that take [it] to municipal wastewater systems, which, as the person you mentioned who commented on Facebook accurately said, our municipal wastewater systems are not designed to treat that kind of toxic soup.
Right now, for Coffin Butte Landfill, those trucks are going to the city of Corvallis for their wastewater treatment center and also to the city of Salem, who are paid to take the leachate. But then it goes into the Willamette River. And I do worry about the quality of drinking water downstream when all this leachate is being dumped into the Willamette River. And I must say it also happens in Lane County as well, where there’s nowhere else to put leachate because we don’t require it to be treated on site. So down in Eugene, it’s also being put into the Willamette River.
Miller: Senator Gelser Blouin, before we say goodbye, I just want to turn to the bigger picture here and the possible state role in this. We got a number of other comments from people who are essentially looking upstream and saying the problem is just the amount of stuff we’re throwing away and the kinds of stuff we’re throwing away. One person said that they want to see a lot more industrial-scale composting of food waste and other organic materials, so there’s less methane emissions from landfills.
Another person, Kristen Gustafson, focused on reducing plastics. She said,“It’s the majority of what goes into our trash bin. Most of it is packaging. Plastic waste is a huge problem. No one should be sending food scraps to the landfill.”
These are things that we’ve talked about with local or regional waste managers a number of times on the show over the years. But putting this into policy has seemed to be really hard. Do you see a role for the legislature in terms of reducing the amount and kind of trash that all Oregonians are creating?
Gelser Blouin: Absolutely. First, we have, and [are] rolling out now, policies that we passed in, I believe it was, 2021 to change the way that we deal with plastics. We have some very innovative plastics recycling requirements that we’re now putting onto the manufacturers and those that are selling. So we’ll start to see some of those changes.
Ultimately though, to solve this problem, all of us have to use less. We can legislate all day long, but at the end of the day, each of us has to look at what we are doing, that is putting things into the landfill. To go out and look at that giant mountain of waste is absolutely overwhelming. You talked about the incinerator. If we close a landfill, if we don’t expand it, we simply move the problem to another place. The solution is less waste. And that takes every single one of us.
Miller: Sara Gelser Blouin and Lisa Arkin, thanks very much.
Gelser Blouin: Thanks.
Arkin: Thank you so much.
Miller: Sara Gelser Blouin is Democratic State Senator from District 8, which includes Corvallis, Albany and South Salem. Lisa Arkin is the executive director of the nonprofit Beyond Toxics.
Contact “Think Out Loud®”
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.