Witness to Out of State Trucks

alan bucknell said...

In recent weeks, there have been many letters to the editors of the local newspapers in Yamhill county concerning the Riverbed Landfill in McMinnville. I am also opposed to the expansion of the landfill. 
My Aunt and Uncle lived in Hillsboro for many years. One Saturday, while my family was visiting them, I went with my uncle to the transfer station in Hillsboro with his pick-up full of their household trash. I asked my uncle why he did not have curbside service. He informed me that it was much cheaper to take his trash in once a month than to have his trash picked up. 
Sure enough, when we got to the transfer site, he paid $5.00 to dump his entire load of trash, which finally ends up at the Riverbend site. If this can be done in cities outside of Yamhill county, then why do I have to pay $16.50 minimum every time I take my pick-up with trash to the landfill at Riverbend. 
The trash from transfer sites is handled at least twice and trucked to the same landfill in McMinnville. How can this cost the people outside of Yamhill county less than one third the cost of me delivering my trash and dumping it over the bank MYSELF?!
Another very aggrevating thing going on at Riverbend that most citizens of Yamhill county are not aware of is that many, many full sized semi-trucks run daily to our landfill from out of the state of Oregon. 
I know this as an absolute true fact. I have contracted trucks on several occasions to transport scrap steel for my company to local scrap yards in Portland. 
These trucks were out of Longview, WA. They hauled full truck loads of chicken feathers(and who knows what else) from a chicken plant by Longview to the Riverbend landfill before coming on down to Willamina to pick up my material. 
Why should the local citizens of Yamhill county ever approve the expansion of the Riverbend landfill site just to make our beautiful community a smelly, nasty eyesore because people from other counties and STATES don't want their own trash in their communities?
As far as I am concerned, the owners and top positioned employees of the corporation running the Riverbend Landfill only care about their bottom line, MONEY! After all, these people are not even residents of OUR local community.