Letters to the Editor: June 24, 2014

This really stinks

I don’t like the stance the News-Register has taken on the landfill, owned and operated by Waste Management, and on the proposed transfer station of Recology Western Oregon (an entirely different company).

I see the effects of the landfill. I watch a small mountain rise on the horizon every time I travel from my home to town. Worse, I smell it in the morning. The odor literally sickens me along Peavine Road. I wonder how longtime residents stand it.

If the “movers and shakers” of McMinnville lived in the area of town affected, this travesty would not have been allowed to continue. This is an amazingly beautiful part of the country. It is being literally trashed. At a Waste Management meeting, I once asked who, of the top management at the landfill, lived in McMinnville. The answer was zero. This is a nationwide company that cares only about the financial bottom line.

This landfill is not good for our area economically or ecologically. Yamhill County has evolved from raising turkeys and walnuts to a tourist destination. We now have amazing restaurants, shops and other tourist businesses. The stink of the landfill threatens this economy. The landfill should have been closed as scheduled in 2014. The proposed transfer station is needed and its placement in an industrial area is reasonable. Recology Western Oregon does a good job. I expect the transfer station will be top-notch. It is laughable that your paper wants to discuss the possible odors, which will be minimal from a good transfer station.

What about the uncontained, acrid and gagging landfill odors that everyone who travels the eastern end of Peavine Road, or lives in that area of Southwest McMinnville, has been experiencing on a regular basis for the last few years?

Karen Swenson

McMinnville