The Oregon Court of Appeals has affirmed the Land Use Board of Appeals‘ decision to block development of the CleanLane resource recovery facility in the unincorporated community of Goshen.

The Court of Appeals on April 8 issued an “order without opinion” upholding the denial and ordering the county to pay attorney fees to Sanipac and the Lane County Garbage and Recycling Association.

Both sides engaged in oral argument before the court on March 19.

The proposed development would receive waste collected in Lane County and use machinery to separate garbage, recyclables and organics. Garbage would be taken to a landfill, recyclables would be sold and organics would be converted on-site into renewable natural gas.

The county purchased vacant land in Goshen where it sought to put the CleanLane facility.

Waste hauling businesses and Goshen residents who opposed the project argued CleanLane would be a waste-related facility, which is not allowed by the site’s zoning. The county argued it would be a recycling facility and a government facility, which are allowed.

LUBA previously sided with the project opponents based on the facts the facility would receive hundreds of thousands of tons of solid waste, transfer 64 percent of that waste for disposal, and decompose methane gas, all of which are waste-related uses. The Court of Appeals upheld that decision in a one-page order.

The county has a backup plan to locate CleanLane at the Short Mountain Landfill instead of Goshen. Before LUBA issued its denial, county commissioners voted to authorize $1.3 million to study the feasibility of building there.

In a statement, the Lane County Garbage and Recycling Association, which represents waste haulers operating in Lane County, celebrated the order as “a major victory for Lane County ratepayers and the Goshen community,” and urged commissioners to use the ruling as an opportunity to reconsider the project.

“We call on the Board of Commissioners to abandon this high-risk project that has put our entire waste management division in jeopardy,” LCGRA spokesperson Katy Pelroy said. “Trust needs to be restored with taxpayers and all stakeholders.”

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in The Register-Guard and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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