QuickTake:

County officials are considering locating the CleanLane recycling facility instead at the Short Mountain Landfill. The county had approved $1.3 million for initial engineering for that work in December while awaiting the appeal on the Goshen site to be decided. 

The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld the denial of a special-use permit for Lane County Public Works to construct the $150 million CleanLane Resource Recovery Facility on a 26-acre plot in Goshen.

The ruling, issued Wednesday, April 8, without any comment from the court, is the latest blow to the county’s efforts to get the site approved at Goshen, a few miles southeast of Eugene. Most significantly, the ruling keeps the county on track to continue exploring the Short Mountain Landfill as an alternative site for the recycling facility, though that’s not a done deal either. 

“We will be considering next steps in light of the Court of Appeals decision,” county spokesperson Devon Ashbridge said in an email. “The work to evaluate Short Mountain as a possible alternate site is ongoing.”

For about a year, the county has unsuccessfully tried to convince authorities that the Goshen site is a legally workable solution for the facility.

In April 2025, a Lane County hearings officer denied the county’s request for a special use permit. The county appealed the decision to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals, known as LUBA, arguing the facility is exempt from the zoning restriction cited in the denial because the facility is a resource recovery facility, not a waste facility. LUBA rejected the appeal, and the county took that rejection to the state Court of Appeals, resulting in this week’s decision.

Sanipac, a hauler owned by Texas-based Waste Connections, and the Lane County Garbage and Recycling Association have opposed the county’s proposal to locate the project at the Goshen site. The association represents local haulers and recyclers. 

Sanipac has been hauling its trash from Lane County to a landfill near Medford instead of the county’s Short Mountain Landfill, leading to declining revenues for Lane County’s solid waste disposal fund. That’s also significant because the CleanLane facility will need to meet a certain threshold of tonnage to financially pencil out.

“We hope this is the end of the road for Lane County’s wasteful legal crusade,” Katy Pelroy, a spokesperson for Lane County Garbage and Recycling Association, said in a statement. “After losing at the local level, at LUBA, and now at the Oregon Court of Appeals, the county must pay legal costs to Sanipac and LCGRA while ratepayers continue to shoulder the burden of budget shortfalls and unmet public safety needs. Enough is enough.” 

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

Even before the Court of Appeals ruling came down, county officials had started looking beyond Goshen. In December, county commissioners approved $1.3 million for engineering to explore if the CleanLane recycling facility should be built at Short Mountain Landfill instead of Goshen.

County officials have been planning the project for years. In December 2023, the county approved plans to contract with Bulk Handling Systems to construct and operate the CleanLane project at the Goshen site and purchase the land. 

County officials have estimated the total costs at $150 million, with the county paying $35 million for building and site development and Bulk Handling Systems paying $115 million. 

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.