Court Damage To Oregon Farmers Cant Be Offset By Payments

The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled that negative impacts on Oregon's farmers from non-farm development can't be offset by making payments.  The court also ruled late last week that it's not enough for a development to avoid taking away agriculturally-zoned land.  A project also can't change costs or agricultural practices for farmers.

Capital Press notes the ruling settles a lawsuit filed over a planned expansion of a landfill in Yamhill County that would affect nearby farms and orchards.  Waste Management, the owner of the Riverbend Landfill, is reviewing the Oregon Supreme Court's ruling.  The ruling doesn't block the landfill expansion but remands the case to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals.

“We’re thrilled with the decision,” says Kathryn Jernstedt, President of Friends of Yamhill County, who participated in the case. “Despite what Yamhill County maintained, the court made it crystal clear that the garbage dump can't buy its way out of the significant impacts it causes to nearby farms; especially from the wind-blown garbage that gets caught in haying equipment and from the gulls, starlings and other nuisance birds that contaminate some fruit crops with their droppings

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