We’ve come a long way in the 35 years since a small, local garbage dump called the Riverbend Landfill was allowed to be built near the banks of the South Yamhill River near McMinnville, Ore. Even then people understood that a pit filled with rotting garbage was going to leak out into the ground and water, especially in this semirural area between Portland and Salem, where it rains a reliable seven or eight months a year.
“The...