FILE - Work at the Coffin Butte landfill, as seen on July 31, 2024.
Nathan Wilk / KLCC
An Environmental Protection Agency inspection last summer found dozens of methane leaks at the Coffin Butte landfill in Benton County, Oregon.
The site accepts more than 1 million tons of garbage annually. It’s located about eight miles north of Corvallis, near the town of Adair Village. Residents living there have shared concerns about odor and fire hazards.
EPA inspectors did a partial walkthrough of the site on June 21. This month, the environmental watchdog group Industrious Labs obtained the report through a public records request.
During their visit, inspectors noted tearing in Coffin Butte’s covering, and plants growing through the tarp. They recorded 41 places where methane emissions exceeded the legal maximum of 500 parts-per-million.
In one area, a gas extraction well was missing its cap, and yielded a methane reading of more than 100,000 parts-per-million. Methane is explosive at around half that concentration, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“That is an enormous oversight,” said Mason Leavitt, a Data Analytics Specialist with Beyond Toxics, a Eugene-based nonprofit that’s been monitoring the situation at Coffin Butte. “At landfills, there are a variety of sources that can start fires, including lithium batteries, operating equipment, and the flare.”
In an email to KLCC, Melissa Quillard — a spokesperson for Republic Services, which owns and operates the landfill — said the company shares the community’s concern about methane emissions.
Following the inspection, she said the landfill’s ownership has taken steps to address the EPA’s findings: patching tears, upgrading its flare, and expanding the gas control and collection system.
However, Mark Yeager — who lives about five miles from the landfill — said conditions for neighbors haven’t improved since last summer. He said acrid odors still carry as far as northern Corvallis, and sometimes for multiple days in a row.
Methane itself is odorless, but not all of the gasses produced in a landfill are.
“There are so many aspects of the landfill operations that need to change, and that’s not going to come from Republic just deciding they want to do a better job,” said Yeager. ”There’s going to need to be some degree of enforcement.”
Quillard said the EPA has not notified Republic Services of any impending enforcement action.
“Coffin Butte Landfill provides essential waste disposal services to the community and is highly engineered with multiple safety measures in place,” she said. “The landfill meets or exceeds all regulatory requirements.”
Application to Expand
Meanwhile, Republic Services is looking to expand the Coffin Butte landfill into a nearby quarry. On Jan.15, Benton County received additional documents as part of the company’s application.
If staff determine the application to be complete, they will schedule a public comment period and a hearing with the Benton County Planning Commission. The county estimates that this application process will be complete in June of this year.
At the same time, the state has paused work on Republic Services' air quality permit process until it gets additional documents. The permit was last renewed in 2009, and expired in 2014 — but has received administrative extensions since then.
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