CORVALLIS, Ore. — Residents of the Coffin Butte landfill are raising environmental concerns about the planned expansion of the landfill.

Two years ago, the EPA released a report finding that the landfill was emitting large amounts of excess methane gas.

Now residents say their concerns go beyond that report.

“When it’s really hot, it smells terrible,” says Jocelynn Carreras, a resident of Adair Village. “When it smells, we have a lot of flies – and I don’t mean 5 or 10 flies, I mean 20. They just come into the house. When you open the door, there are tons of flies.”

From pollution to fires to strong odors – and claims that runoff water from the landfill is polluting surrounding waterways.

“People are concerned that the methane leaks could catch fire. And since we have a forested area here, it could catch fire quickly and cause damage to the farms around here, but also to our city. They’ve seen what happened in Eastern Oregon and those fires and how devastating they were to them,” Carreras adds.

Government officials and environmental groups are calling for further investigation by the EPA.

Coffin Butte sent us a statement which reads in part:

“We conduct methane monitoring throughout the landfill as part of Surface Emissions Monitoring (SEM) in compliance with state and federal regulations using EPA-approved monitoring methods.

We utilize an extensive network of DEQ-approved groundwater monitoring wells and collect samples twice a year in accordance with our regulatory permits.”