Deschutes County, Hooker Creek hit impasse in talks to purchase new landfill site east of Bend
(Update: Added video)
Commissioners will review and consider their options next week
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – Eight months of negotiations to acquire the chosen site for Deschutes County’s next landfill have left the county and the site’s current owner, Hooker Creek LLC, at an impasse, meaning county commissioners now must revisit their options and decide what to do next.
Commissioners voted 3-0 last July to enter into negotiations with Hooker Creek to buy the Moon Pit aggregate mine site east of Bend for an estimated $15 million, choosing it over the other site finalist, called Roth East.
But even then, several major issues remained unresolved, and no one was saying the path to a done deal would be quick or easy. After the 3-0 vote, Commissioner Patti Adair said, “This is a long way from being done.” Colleague Phil Chang agreed: “We haven’t landed this thing yet.”
In a new issue summary (see below) to bring commissioners up to speed and lay out the options, Director of Solid Waste Tim Brownell and Assistant Legal Counsel Stephanie Marshall summarized the process so far, dating back to 2019, and why things have hit a roadblock.
They said the discussion participants “have not been able to reach agreement on certain core issues of a potential transaction including, but not limited to site investigations, access to records for the county’s due diligence, price for the property and for a portion of Hooker Creek’s water rights, and timing of closing of a purchase and sale agreement.”
Commissioners initially were scheduled to take up the matter this Wednesday, but that meeting was canceled, so the discussion is now set for next Wednesday, the 19th.
KTVZ News reached out to a Hooker Creek representative about the county negotiations reaching an impasse but has not heard back.
During a Feb. 24 executive session, commissioners were briefed on the situation and directed staff to tell Moon Pit LLC and Hooker Creek that they were at an impasse and the county was going to move on and explore other options for future solid waste disposal, the issue summary stated.
Among the options: Commissioners could reconvene the county’s Solid Waste Advisory Committee, which engaged in reviewing the hundreds of possible sites and eventually narrowing the list down to two finalists.
SWAC, as it’s known, also could conduct another review of the Roth East site, which is farther east of Bend and had its pluses, such as a lower likely purchase cost, but also “significant environmental concerns,” such as key sage grouse habitat that Brownell said now sits adjacent to the property on revised state maps. That site also would mean higher transportation costs than the Moon Pit.
Another option commissioners are being asked to consider is to have the county’s landfill consultant, Parametrix, revise its site selection criteria to consider to consider smaller parcels with shorter landfill capacity.
Also possible, they said, is to once again explore the option of shipping the county’s waste to out-of-county, regional landfills elsewhere in the Northwest.
That was a much-debated option some two decades ago, when the county was looking for landfill sites but determined they could instead expand on the current southeast Bend landfill site for a while longer.
Brownell did have a bit of good news to share with KTVZ News, in terms of the currently projected deadline to make a new trash-disposal option come together.
He said the expected growth of the county’s waste stream has flattened in recent years, meaning the expected “all full” point for Knott Landfill, formerly some time in 2029, has been pushed back a bit, to early 2031.
“We got some time back,” Brownell said, adding that while they are “fortunate to get more time” to work through the process, “it doesn’t take the pressure off” of finding a new path forward for the county’s garbage.
