The Benton County Board of Commissioners on Oct. 28 continued a public hearing on Republic Services’ appeal of a planning commission denial of a conditional-use application to expand Coffin Butte Landfill, and left the written record open until Oct. 29 at 4 p.m. and the hearing continued to Nov. 4 at 1 p.m.

Opponents — including nearby residents, engineers, planners, environmental groups and local elected officials — told the board they believe the applicant has not met the county’s burden of proof under Benton County Code 53.215 (criteria addressing "serious interference," character of the area and undue burden on public services). Speakers cited multiple ongoing state and federal investigations, local health and safety concerns, and the county’s long history with the site.

"This is our last shot," said Jeffrey Kleinman, attorney for Valley Neighbors, during the evening session in which more than three dozen people testified. Kleinman urged the commissioners to treat eyewitness and community testimony as probative and said conditions proposed by staff do not reliably demonstrate the applicant can meet applicable land-use standards.

Academic and technical witnesses described environmental risks they said were insufficiently addressed in the application. Reading a written statement by Dr. John Selker, a water-resources professor at Oregon State University, Joel Geyer said, "To extend a permit for further contamination would be complicit in this tragedy." Geyer and other expert witnesses testified about groundwater and fractured-rock hydrogeology on Tampico Ridge, arguing the proposed south-of-Coffin-Butte-Road footprint risks long-term impacts to springs, wells and surface water and that the applicant’s monitoring proposals lack specifics such as borehole siting and depth.

Multiple witnesses pointed to recent enforcement attention. Mason Levitt of Beyond Toxics summarized recent agency findings and remote-sensing data, saying regulators and independent monitors have documented fugitive landfill gas and methane leaks and that "this is not anecdotal. This is a repository of qualitative evidence." Levitt cited EPA inspections in 2022 and 2024, Carbon Mapper plume detections and DEQ follow-up inquiries about monitoring exemptions.

Testimony also described persistent nuisance impacts at neighboring properties: persistent odors, windblown litter and off-site noise from trucks and on-site operations. Several neighbors and nonprofit operators said the existing operation already puts livestock and small nonprofits at risk; horse-therapy nonprofit Bit by Bit said airborne plastic and blasting noise have reduced usable pasture and interrupted therapeutic sessions.

Speakers including Mark Yeager, a registered civil-environmental engineer and long-time local volunteer, summarized the site’s decades-long history in county land-use records and warned that an approval could remove a current 1,100,000-ton-per-year cap in the franchise agreement for Coffin Butte and that financial incentives in the franchise have created an appearance of a county revenue interest tied to expansion.

Many opponents urged the board to defer to the planning commission’s unanimous denial, citing the commission’s findings and work by the Benton County Talks Trash (BCTT) effort and the county’s advisory committees. Senator Sarah Gelser and Representative Sarah Finger McDonald submitted a joint letter urging denial and pointing to recently enacted HB 3794 (a regional task force to study Willamette Valley municipal solid-waste options) as a reason to allow a regional planning process to proceed without enlarging the landfill footprint now.

County staff told the board they recommended approval with conditions, but opponents and some expert witnesses said the proposed conditions rely heavily on monitoring and future actions rather than demonstrating present compliance; several speakers noted that monitoring without robust enforcement does not prevent harm. Opponents referenced legal precedent that an applicant bears the burden of proof to show criteria are met and that conditions cannot defer critical demonstrations of compliance to a post-approval stage.

The board took two administrative steps at the end of the evening: it left the record open until 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 29, for additional documents responding only to materials submitted at the hearing, and continued the hearing until Nov. 4 at 1 p.m. for deliberation. The board said Republic Services may provide a written rebuttal and staff requested Republic address a concise list of themes raised by public testimony.

The hearing drew speakers across a range of expertise — toxicologists, hydrogeologists, engineers, public-health practitioners, farmers, land-use planners, nonprofit advocates and multiple long-time residents — who urged that Coffin Butte’s wet climate, local geology, and the facility’s past compliance and emission record make an expansion inappropriate. Supporters of the expansion did not make in-person rebuttal during the evening session; the company was allowed to submit written responses in the record before the Nov. 4 deliberation.

The commissioners did not vote on the appeal during the session. They directed staff to accept responsive submittals into the record by the Oct. 29 deadline and scheduled a Nov. 4 public meeting for deliberation and decision.