ABOUT US
Who are we?
Valley Neighbors for Environmental Quality and Safety (VNEQS) (pronounced “vee-necks”) is a compendium of Willamette Valley residents that came together originally in 2021, to oppose LU-21-047, the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) application submitted by Republic Services (back then) to expand the Coffin Butte Landfill. Thanks in large part to VNEQS efforts, that highly flawed application, after being unanimously denied by the Benton County Planning Commission, was withdrawn by the applicant in March of 2022. Meanwhile after all we learned during the process and since (see Get Up to Speed) we are now dedicated to preventing ANY expansions of this dump – including Republic’s most recent attempt in 2024: LU-24-027. In this website and our in our communications we hope to provide clear, incontrovertible evidence that no expansion should EVER be allowed.
The Backstory
In the summer of 2021, Republic Services applied to Benton County for permission to expand the Coffin Butte Landfill… again (they’ve expanded a number of times in the past). Because this sort of thing is a land use issue, a permit is required. That kind of permit is called a Conditional Use Permit, or “CUP.”
Once a CUP application has been submitted, it must go through a public hearing process. Because it is a landfill, the application must first be run by SWAC (the Solid Waste Advisory Council) for their recommendation, and then it moves on to the Planning Commission, which holds a public hearing (receives testimony) and makes a determination.
When landfill neighbors discovered that Republic Services wanted the County to abandon Coffin Butte Road (a public road our tax dollars pay for; a road that is our primary emergency exit route in the event of wildfire) and give that land to them so that they could expand the landfill across it all the way to the ridge on the other side…
…that was more or less the beginning: VNEQS was formed and we all began researching the facts and preparing testimony to submit in opposition to the expansion. The more we learned, the more appalled we became at how atrocious any expansion would be — the environmental impacts, the public health and safety impacts, the climate impacts… and more. It was no longer just about closure of the road; the issues were numerous, and continue to pile up to this day as we learn more and fight further attempts to expand.