On most weekdays, Sanipac trucks snake through Springfield neighborhoods, picking up the community’s trash.
This refuse used to travel less than 10 miles to its final destination, Lane County’s Short Mountain Landfill.
Now, it takes a 170-mile journey down Interstate 5 to Dry Creek Landfill outside of Medford, which is owned by Sanipac’s parent company, Waste Connections.
Sanipac officials told Springfield City Council leaders last year they were hauling waste to their own landfill to avoid passing on fee increases to customers.
Those fees, roughly 8% in addition to the normal inflation adjustment this year, would have gone to Lane County’s Clean Lane Project, which will turn food waste into renewable natural gas and divert recycling from the landfill.
Mason Leavitt, with Eugene-based climate advocacy group Beyond Toxics, said Sanipac’s actions likely won’t save Springfield garbage customers much money in the long-run, but could have big, environmental consequences.
“The federal rules, and the Oregon rules, have a massive loophole which allows landfill operators to exempt sections of their landfills from monitoring that are too dangerous to monitor,” Leavitt said. “What we found is that Dry Creek Landfill is the biggest offender of this exemption.”
That’s according to a Beyond Toxics report examining emissions data at Oregon’s landfills, including three owned by Sanipac’s parent company.
It found Waste Connections doesn’t inspect nearly 70% of Dry Creek Landfill for methane leaks. In contrast, roughly 10% of the Short Mountain Landfill in Lane County is exempt, mostly around its asbestos pit.
In an email to KLCC, Lane County estimated that Sanipac has exported about 40,000 tons of waste outside the county since last July.
According to reporting by the Eugene Weekly, which first reported Sanipac efforts to divert trash, a Waste Connections company also put in a bid to be the county’s partner on the CleanLane Project, but lost the contract to Bulk Handling Systems.
That company will cover roughly $100 million of the facility’s probable $150 million cost, said Steve Miller, who owns the Eugene-based firm.
Miller argued Sanipac’s tactics don’t just interfere with his project, but will mean less money going to recycling education and other county services.
"While they may make more money by putting that material into their own landfill, instead (of) in the Short Mountain landfill, that's a disservice to this community," he said.
Eugene’s trash is still going to the Short Mountain Landfill because of a long-time agreement between city and county government. Springfield doesn’t have rules that limit where its garbage is taken.
Springfield Mayor Sean VanGordon told KLCC that the only requirement Springfield government has for its trash hauler is an annual report every spring. The city also has approval over the rates Sanipac can charge its customers.
“Under our franchise agreement, where (Sanipac) takes its garbage is an internal business decision that they can make,” VanGordon said. “When I think about it as a citizen and an elected official, rates really are an issue. We’ve all lived through the last couple of years where everything costs a little bit more.”
Springfield city council initially raised concerns about the CleanLane project’s impact on rates, sending a letter to the county in December 2023.
VanGordon said the city council hasn’t discussed the project much since then, but said he’s also always willing to sit down with county leaders to talk through any challenges around the CleanLane facility, or the landfill.
Springfield City Council is scheduled to discuss Sanipac’s annual rate adjustment Monday evening.
Zoning Challenge
Trash companies are also fighting CleanLane on another front: zoning codes.
Lane County plans to build the waste sorting and methane extraction facility in the Goshen area south of Eugene, but needed to get a permit. Its own planning director initially approved it.
Sanipac, a few neighboring homeowners, and the Lane County Garbage and Recycling Association–which represents smaller garbage haulers–appealed.
Last week, an independent hearings official rejected the county’s arguments, saying the project was incompatible with current zoning.
Jake Pelroy, president of the Lane County Garbage and Recycling Association, said the county’s chosen location was never suitable for this type of project.
“It's highly irresponsible and the county has lost millions of dollars on this,” Pelroy said. “They’re at risk of losing even more and they should do whatever they can to get out of this."
Pelroy said county leaders also should have seen these setbacks coming, because all garbage haulers need to make decisions that make economic sense.
“They were warned that this is what happens,” Pelroy said. “The system is set up where we’re customers to the county, the haulers are customers.”
In a statement, Lane County spokesperson Devon Ashbridge said the permit decision was disappointing, but “illustrates the difficulty in applying old land-use codes to such a state-of-the-art facility.” She said the county could still appeal.
County officials have also discussed a potential work-around to address private companies diverting waste, such as opening up their landfill to other counties.
Leavitt, from Beyond Toxics, said CleanLane could become a regional, environmentally friendly alternative to privately-owned landfills. Coffin Butte Landfill in Benton County has been cited for environmental issues, and has a shorter expected lifespan than Short Mountain. Marion County is also already exporting trash.
“At the end of the day, we’re paying for our waste,” Leavitt said. “We can pay to do the right thing, or we can pay to do something unsustainable, and bad for our planet.”
Sanipac and its parent company, Waste Connections, did not respond to KLCC’s requests for comment. In its argument against the permit, Sanipac said the project would cause it to lose revenue, and argued that the process was biased.
