Marion County once burned its trash — and generated some of its electrical power — using the Reworld incinerator. But since that facility has previously announced it would be closing and stopped accepting residential waste, the county’s garbage is now going to the Coffin Butte Landfill in Benton County. However, as reported in the Statesman Journal, Reworld is challenging state regulations that it blamed on the closure. Regardless, since space at Coffin Butte is limited, Marion County commissioners have already approved trucking some of the waste to a landfill in The Dalles in Wasco County. A spokesman for Marion County told OPB that the move is scheduled to begin in the next few weeks. Like many others in Oregon, Marion County faces tough choices about how to environmentally dispose of the unwanted materials its residents throw out. We spoke earlier this month about the environmental challenges presented by both landfills and incineration. Joining us to discuss these policies and the financial considerations involved are Marion County Commissioner Kevin Cameron and Environmental Services Division Manager Brian May.
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. Marion County once burned its trash and generated some of its electricity at the Reworld incinerator north of Salem. But since that facility announced it would be closing and stopped accepting residential waste, the county’s garbage has been going to the Coffin Butte Landfill in Benton County. The county commission has also approved trucking some waste to a landfill in The Dalles.
Earlier this month, we talked about the environmental challenges presented by both landfills and incinerators. We’re going to get two county perspectives today. Kevin Cameron is a Marion County Commissioner. Brian May is the manager of the county’s Environmental Services Division. They both join me now. It’s great to have both of you on Think Out Loud.
Kevin Cameron: Well, it’s great to be here with you today.
Brian May: Yes, thank you very much.
Miller: Kevin Cameron, first – what went through your mind when you heard that Reworld wanted to get out of the garbage burning business in Marion County?
Cameron: I would say this first, that because of that facility over the last 30-plus years, we’ve been a leader in recovery, in the programs we have in Marion County. And the citizens really appreciate that. We’ve had several surveys where citizens really believed in turning our solid waste into energy. So that went through my mind first. And now what are we gonna do with it? Landfills are landfills, and we’re not getting energy out of them like we could be in an energy-to-waste facility. I would refer to it as thermal reduction, it’s another one of the R’s. It reduces the amount of waste that we have, which is really important when you think about reducing as the first R, reusing, and then recycling is the last R. We were doing reduction on the back end, actually.
Miller: Brian, what do you see as the benefits that the incinerator provided to the community?
May: Well, I think for Marion County residents, there’s kind of that peace of mind to be able to process and handle the waste that you generate within your own county, in the sense that you’re not having to kind of push it out and dump it on somebody else. I know that that was part of the founding thoughts in the mid ‘80s, as to how are we gonna handle our waste? And our commissioners at the time wanted to keep it within our footprint. That was an important piece. Along with that, as commissioner mentioned, the recovery side – making sure that we recovered as much as we could before we incinerated this material. But it’s difficult when we can’t process our own waste within our county.
Miller: Kevin Cameron, why did the county leave the partnership with Reworld in 2021, and at that time, switch to simply paying the company a flat fee to take its garbage?
Cameron: When I got here in 2014, we had a contract that I believe expired with them. We renewed that contract for five years with an extension, somewhere in there … it must have been 2015. I believe they didn’t want to extend that contract for another five years when it came up for renewal. They were hinting at that point in time they wanted to do something different. We, at that time, just negotiated terms – Brian could probably tell you better what those were – for them to just continue to handle a certain amount of our solid waste.
Miller: It’s interesting you say that because even then, in 2020-2021 – meaning, before the state passed this stricter air quality monitoring law that has been talked about as one of the big reasons that they wanted to back out of this – you’re saying that there were hints even before that that maybe they were done.
Cameron: Yeah. There’s a history. They got bought out by a large company. Some large companies are more about the bottom line than they are about the local communities, and we can’t control that. So I think, yes, there was not this willingness to try to invest and work with us, to continue to upgrade the facility and keep it going.
Miller: Brian May, the most recent contract extension that the county signed with this company allowed the company to continue operating until June 30, to give it time to process waste that it had accepted before January 1. But according to the Statesman Journal, which has been doing a lot of really in-depth reporting on this, there’s only space on hand at the site for about a week’s worth of trash to be burned. So what is it burning right now?
May: Yeah, good question. You’d have to almost go out and visit the facility. When you look at that, you think of more of a standard what I’d call tipping floor – waste is dumped kind of on the ground but on a concrete pad. The Reworld facility has a pit and it’ll store anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000 tons of material. Now, in your normal operation, when it’s up and running, they never really go below what I’d call that floor volume, so they don’t really get into the pit. A lot of their active waste is processed above that.
What happens is, over time it packs that waste down and makes it very, very dense. So in a sense, you have more yards of material packed super dense, so that pit becomes more like 3,000 tons. In addition to that, the moisture that percolates just through our normal waste gets settled in there and it makes it harder to burn. The Reworld crew has literally been kind of digging, working and trying to dry that waste out to be able to process it completely and incinerate it, versus digging it out and hauling it somewhere else. So we have provided a little bit of what we call dry trash to help augment that system to allow them to finish burning … here a couple of weeks ago was the medical waste that was there, but now it’s that pit volume that’s left.
Miller: In our last conversation we talked about the fact that Marion County was gonna be sending a lot more of its trash to Coffin Butte Landfill in Benton County than in the past, basically almost all of it. I now understand, as I mentioned at the beginning of my intro, that some trash is also going to be going to a landfill in Wasco County. Why this split?
May: As I think your listeners are aware, there are some issues around Coffin Butte Landfill, and it’s seeking an additional capacity or approval from Benton County. I think it’s in our best interest in Marion County to make sure that we kind of explore other options to avoid risk. As part of that, Coffin Butte has raised their rates for disposal. So working with our haulers association, kind of looked out there for other alternatives, and that’s where the Wasco County facility has come up. We hope to be sending some material out there before the 1st of February.
Miller: Commissioner Cameron, speaking of the cost here, as Brian May mentioned, Marion County has already had some of the higher garbage rates in the state. What are all these changes going to mean for ratepayers?
Cameron: Well, I want to take a step back. Every municipality has to handle their solid waste. And I think as Brian said, we have always wanted to try to make sure we don’t send it into somebody else’s backyard. One of the things that we’re working on – Brian and I are participating, with Benton County leading this – is a regional materials management committee. We’re looking at the entire region: where are things going now? Where could they possibly go in the future?
We all have this. It’s not just Marion County. You look at the region, and the people that are participating in that are all the way from Multnomah County, all the way down to Lane County. As a region, identifying the resources that we have to handle solid waste, to reduce solid waste, to recycle solid waste, and then finally to dispose of it. It’s a very, very complicated thing. Most citizens, what they expect is they wheel their trash can out to the curb and it gets picked up. It’s probably the smallest utility bill that they pay today, when you think about it, of all the utilities that they pay for.
We’ve got challenges, I will admit that. But going back to this waste to energy facility, we really are looking for all kinds of ways that we potentially could [be], I want to say cutting edge, in how we handle our garbage and our waste. So this is really important to us. Europe has over 500 of these active energy facilities. Japan has over 300 of them. And we’ve been a leader for a long time. This facility generates enough power to light the city of Woodburn. And that’s something that a lot of people don’t even realize, the energy that comes out of their solid waste ...
Miller: You mean power the entire city of Woodburn? Or just have lights on there?
Cameron: Typically, power the city of Woodburn. Obviously, Woodburn’s grown in the last five to six years with their expansion of their urban growth boundary. But yes, the kilowatt hours were enough to power the city.
Miller: Is the county interested in buying this facility? That idea was mentioned in the recent Statesman Journal article, but I didn’t see any comment from any county leaders. Kevin Cameron, what’s the latest?
Cameron: I’ll make a comment on that. Yes. I’m just gonna go back to what I just said about the regional facilities that exist. We were looking at it. We know that we could not operate it, would not operate it, because of the existing permits, the way it’s structured. We were looking at it as a facility. Could it be a transfer station? It’s close to rail. We were looking at it from that perspective. But Reworld is the owner. That was the reason we were looking at it. And it’s still out there. We don’t know what the future of that asset’s gonna be, but it’s a potential asset for our community and for our region.
Miller: Brian May, I want to go back to what we heard from Commissioner Cameron. Obviously, Marion County is not alone in dealing with this – we all make trash and it has to go somewhere. What do you see as the lessons that are important, that any of us could draw from what your county is going through right now?
May: I think the lessons learned is, again, focusing on a bit of what Commissioner mentioned, in our roots of the reduce, reuse, recycle. Having been in the industry for over 30 years, I joke about someday working myself out of a job and not having to worry about disposing of 330,000 tons of waste. I think I’m proudest of Marion County residents and businesses for the amount of recycling that we do, and our efforts to reduce that waste stream. I think we need to continue to put dollars towards education and helping people as this all evolves.
Waste is part of our future. And even though we don’t want it to be part of the future, it’s here. As the Commissioner mentioned, when you push at the curb it, it needs to go away. And we need to make sure it happens every day. So spending the time and effort to focus on your reduction activities and education, I think is a big piece that we need to continue to do.
Commissioner also mentioned the idea and the concept that we’re involved in is a regional approach. Because garbage isn’t just a Marion County issue, it’s everybody’s. And I think we need to all kind of be at the table to have those conversations and figure it out.
Miller: Brian May and Kevin Cameron, thanks very much.
May: Thank you.
Cameron: Thank you.
Miller: Brian May is the Marion County Environmental Services Division manager. Kevin Cameron is one of the members of the Marion County Comission.
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