By Bailey Meyers and Ashlin Sanderson

No one ever thought it would be easy for Lane County to build a $150 million facility to dramatically reduce the amount of trash going into its Short Mountain Landfill.

The county is moving forward with the project, called the CleanLane Resource Recovery Facility, to comply with a state law requiring a big reduction in the trash that now ends up in Short Mountain. 

The landfill is Lane County’s biggest source of methane, a greenhouse gas that’s generated from organic wastes (for the most part, food) dumped at Short Mountain. The CleanLane project is expected to remove and capture about 90 percent of the methane from organic wastes before they enter the landfill. 

In all, the CleanLane project promises to remove enough recyclable materials and methane-generating wastes to cut 80,000 tons from the materials now going into Short Mountain every year. 

“CleanLane represents a fundamental transformation for Lane County’s handling of municipal solid waste,” according to the county’s website. “It will serve as a model for other counties in Oregon and across the country.”

But the ambitious project is running into trouble, and the most potent opposition comes from Sanipac, the largest trash hauler in Lane County, and its sister company, EcoSort, a Eugene recycler. Sanipac and EcoSort officials declined to be interviewed for this story.

Sanipac and EcoSort are owned by an international trash hauling conglomerate, Waste Connections, Inc., the third largest waste handling company in the U.S. Run from offices near Houston, Waste Connections owns or controls more than 450 local trash haulers and recycling companies, including nearly 40 in Oregon, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission records. Last year, the company posted $8.9 billion in revenues and $617 million in profits.

Sanipac and EcoSort’s opposition came after the companies tried — and failed — to win the lucrative contract to build and run the CleanLane facility. County officials instead selected another Eugene firm with years of experience in building facilities to capture methane from trash.

Sanipac has since expressed concerns about the need and the cost of CleanLane — plus the higher tipping fees at the Short Mountain landfill to help finance the project. Tipping fees are paid by trash haulers when they unload at the landfill and are typically passed on to customers. (The county has increased tipping fees to pay off the $35 million it plans to borrow to cover its share of CleanLane’s $150 million price.) Other opponents have challenged the facility siting in Goshen, located at the junction of highways 58 and 99 and I-5.

County officials are pressing ahead with the project, scheduled for a 2026 opening. 

Meanwhile, Sanipac and EcoSort have quietly taken another approach that could thwart those plans: Choke off the trash — and money — CleanLane needs to succeed.

The strategy will test the companies’ political power and market muscle. And the outcome could shift millions of dollars in additional costs onto Lane County residents.

Here’s why. The CleanLane project will need a steady flow of both garbage and the tipping fees paid by trash haulers. If the trash flow drops too far, there won’t be enough wastes for the CleanLane facility to process. 

And if there’s a significant decline in revenue from tipping fees, Lane County may not be able to cover its debt payments on the CleanLane project without increasing tipping fees even more.

County records show that Sanipac and EcoSort have been cutting back on their shipments of trash to Short Mountain, with a steep decline in recent months. Sanipac is now shipping 30 percent fewer tons a month to Short Mountain compared to its 2023 levels. EcoSort’s shipments have essentially dropped to zero. 

In all, the Waste Connections-owned companies are now shipping an average of 4,800 fewer tons to Short Mountain than they did in 2023.

County records say Sanipac and EcoSort’s actions have cut Short Mountain’s tipping fee revenues by $4 million a year. 

Where is all that trash going now?

Public statements from Sanipac officials and sources familiar with the company’s operations say that trash is now being shipped 167 miles away to the Dry Creek Landfill in White City, just north of Medford.

Such a move might make little economic sense — except that Dry Creek is owned by Waste Connections, Sanipac and EcoSort’s parent company. 

Lane County commissioners could meet as soon as next week to discuss the effects of Sanipac and EcoSort’s actions. 

County officials decline to say how Sanipac and EcoSort’s strategy and the loss of $4 million in tipping fees each year will affect the CleanLane project — or if those costs must now be shifted onto Lane County residents through higher trash bills.

County officials, however, remain determined to withstand the opposition from Sanipac.

“The opposition is framing itself as concerned for ‘Mom and Pop’ haulers,” says Lane County Commissioner Laurie Trieger. “But really, the opposition is a large national corporate entity that is unhappy about the possibility of competition. Our job as a public entity is to do the most public good for the most members of the public, and that’s what we believe this project will do.”

Lane County Commissioner David Loveall, a longtime critic of the CleanLane project, says the entire project is far too sprawling and expensive, and he doesn’t believe it will deliver on its promises. Loveall says no one should be surprised that Sanipac and EcoSort have shifted where they haul their wastes, given increased tipping fees at Short Mountain. 

“We’re making less money now than we did prior to the increase of tipping fees,” Loveall says. “So right now we don’t even have the money to service the debt we’re going to take on, because we’re making less money. Does that make sense?” 

The Short Mountain landfill spreads across 103 acres just east of I-5, two miles south of Goshen. Short Mountain is a rarity among landfills. Most communities rely on landfills that are running out of space. Short Mountain has enough room to handle another 70 years’ worth of Lane County’s trash.

 About 53 percent of the trash tossed away by Lane County residents is already diverted from the landfill — the highest rate for any county in Oregon, state records show. But Oregon law has pushed counties to improve their recovery rates. To comply with the law, Lane County needs to divert 63 percent of its wastes — a goal CleanLane will help the county reach. County officials say the CleanLane project will add 20 years of life to the landfill.

CleanLane is also a response to the county’s climate action plans, approved in 2020. In 2022, Lane County asked for proposals to design, build and operate the facility, originally called the Integrated Material and Energy Recovery Facility. County officials later did away with the project’s inelegant acronym — IMERF — and rebranded it CleanLane.

EcoSort was one of four companies to submit a proposal. In its proposal, EcoSort said it would partner with Sanipac to expand its existing recycling facility in Glenwood. The EcoSort/Sanipac proposal had a modest price tag of $7.5 million — all of it private investment.

But the EcoSort/Sanipac proposal fell far short of the county’s hopes. Instead, Lane County officials selected another Eugene-based company, Bulk Handling Systems, to build the project. The company’s proposal focuses on anaerobic digestion, a method of naturally heating wastes to extract methane out of garbage before it goes into the landfill. County officials note that Bulk Handling Systems has developed its own anaerobic digestion technology and has built similar projects in several states, as well as in Europe.

 In the end, the competition wasn’t close. Records show county officials scored the Bulk Handling Systems proposal with 92 out of 100 points. The EcoSort/Sanipac proposal earned 53.

 In December 2023, over Sanipac’s protests, the county board approved the contract with Bulk Handling Systems on a 3-2 vote. Commissioners Trieger, Pat Farr and Heather Buch voted for the project. Commissioners Loveall and Ryan Ceniga voted against the deal.

The CleanLane project prompted the creation in February 2024 of the Lane County Garbage and Recycling Association, which represents small, family-owned trash haulers and recycling companies. The group argues CleanLane is too expensive and will largely duplicate what private companies in the county already do. As Jake Pelroy, the association’s president, tells Eugene Weekly, CleanLane “is like buying a Lamborghini when you already have a really great car in your garage.”

The Lane County Garbage and Recycling Association has also drawn attention to other issues.

Neighbors of the proposed Goshen site complain about the potential smell the CleanLane facility might give off. Opponents have challenged the zoning change needed to build the plant, noting that nearly one-third of the 26-acre site is wetlands. Small trash hauling firms say higher tipping fees needed to pay off the county’s debt payments on CleanLane will drive up the region’s garbage bills. 

County officials have had answers. The proposed CleanLane facility will be self-contained and odor-free. They say the zoning change fits with the overall land use plan for the areas, and they will find ways to mitigate the loss of wetlands. The increases in tipping fees to pay for the facility will mean residential customers’ bills will increase between just $2 and $2.40 over the next four years.

Sanipac officials used the higher tipping fees at Short Mountain to finance the CleanLane project to help justify rate increases to their customers. In April 2024, Sanipac officials told the Springfield City Council that, despite using the Short Mountain fees to justify higher rates, the company was actually sending trash to the Dry Creek Landfill.

In August 2024, the Lane County board, with Loveall and Ceniga in dissent, voted to approve the $35 million bond to help finance CleanLane. 

Loveall asked why the county needed the CleanLane facility if Sanipac was simply hauling trash to another county. One county staff member said the “threat” was not reasonable given the high costs of doing so.

Within a few months, the threat became real, with Sanipac and EcoSort slashing their shipments to Short Mountain and cutting into Lane County’s landfill revenues.

Loveall says he is not bothered by Sanipac and EcoSort’s actions.

“Springfield dumps all of their trash in Jackson County at a landfill owned by Sanipac,” Loveall says. “Is this [CleanLane] really necessary at this time in our county? I don’t believe it is… and Springfield is not going to join.”

The city of Eugene prohibits haulers from using any landfill other than Short Mountain. Loveall believes that if Sanipac can ship the trash it collects in Eugene out of Lane County as well, the CleanLane project is dead. If that happened, he says, it would be “impossible to run this machine in a profitable way.”

 If Sanipac and EcoSort continue their strategy, Lane County commissioners could face difficult choices. They might be faced with raising Short Mountain tipping fees even higher to make up for the revenue lost to Waste Connections. Or they might cancel or delay the CleanLane project and face paying penalties to the contractor, Bulk Handling Systems.

One person critical of Sanipac and EcoSort’s strategy is Steve Miller, the CEO of Bulk Handling Systems.

Miller says his company and Lane County now have a legal obligation to see the project through. He believes that efforts to divert trash out of the county — and reduce tipping fee revenues that will help pay for the CleanLane project — will end up shifting costs onto other Lane County residents.

“The actions of Sanipac are going to raise my rates as an individual living in Lane County,” Miller says. “They are really hurting their customers…. and to do what? To make more money for their holding company in Texas.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Miller adds, “and I don’t think their customers know it.”

Sydney Seymour and Lily Lum contributed reporting to this story.
This story was developed as part of the Catalyst Journalism Project at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Catalyst brings together investigative reporting and solutions journalism to spark action and response to Oregon’s most perplexing issues. To learn more visit CatalystJournalism.uoregon.edu.