Lane County officials are now exploring whether to put CleanLane at Short Mountain Landfill, a move that would shift the long-delayed waste and recycling diversion project from one fight over zoning to another. The county’s first choice, in Goshen, was tied up for more than a year and then denied, leaving CleanLane without a clear path forward.
The timing matters because CleanLane was supposed to open this year, and Thursday’s hearing showed the county is still trying to keep the project alive after the earlier land-use battle reached the Oregon Supreme Court. That earlier proposal failed after courts and land-use officials said the waste-related facility did not fit Goshen zoning, a ruling that now hangs over the new site review.
For Lane County, Short Mountain Landfill is being framed as a public project tied to landfill operations and waste diversion. For the Lane Garbage and Recycling Association and Springfield hauler Sanipac, it is something else: a facility they say belongs in the category of industrial commercial work, not a government project that can simply be folded into an existing landfill site. In documents filed for Thursday’s hearing, they argued the planned recycling facilities and education and visiting center were incompatible with the landfill as it stands.
Wendie Kellington sharpened that argument further. She said the county’s contract plans with Bulk Handling Systems turn CleanLane into a commercial enterprise rather than an allowable government project, describing it as a fully independent, long-term, separately financed, privately operated, revenue-producing processing commodity and energy enterprise. She also argued the county should be required to provide 460 parking spots, not the 42 spots currently planned, a demand that would make the proposal far more burdensome than the county has described.
The county’s side is equally blunt about why it wants the project there. Mason Leavitt said the facility would safely pull out a large share of methane before it enters the landfill and leaks into the atmosphere, and that Short Mountain Landfill is one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in Lane County. He said the project would also complement the landfill by letting treated organic material be used in place of soil as a cover layer, with 1,900 solar panels also part of the broader site plan.
The real question now is not whether CleanLane needs a home. It is whether Lane County will formally choose Short Mountain Landfill and then persuade land-use officials that a project built around recycling diversion, methane extraction and public education still counts as a county landfill function. The county’s earlier path through Goshen collapsed under that same kind of argument, and the new one is already meeting the same resistance.
Thursday did not settle the site dispute. It showed that Lane County has moved from one rejected location to another contested one, with the decision on Short Mountain Landfill still unresolved and the project’s next step now resting on whether officials decide to push ahead at all.
