The poor people who live in North Plains, Oregon have been complaining for almost a year now about the hideous stink that was dropped onto their town with no advance warning by the City of Portland's insane food composting program. Their cries have not gone unnoticed, but the politicians and the characters who run the compost dump are shining them on with one platitude after another. The place reeks to high heaven, and the official response is, "Is it really that bad? Maybe we can try harder to do something about it."

The latest round of blowing-off was this week at the Washington County commission. The story is recounted here:

In the end, the commission directed county staff to form a committee of Recology and North Plains officials to develop a solution that could include setting objective standards for measuring offensive odors.

"I think we’re leaning toward extending the permit with conditions, so lets pull together a team and see what it can come up with," said County Chair Andy Duyck.

In other words, neighbors, call your realtors. Nothing meaningful is going to be done.

It's ironic that Portland is destroying a place like North Plains. Portland is also destroying itself from within, with soulless apartment bunkers, all on the premise that high-density infill in the city is the only way to save the character of outlying rural areas. But then, in the name of "green," the city knowingly destroys the character of an outlying rural area. And the coprolite specimen running Portland washes his hands of the whole mess and blames it on the faceless Goldschmidt bobbleheads at Metro.

Sorry, North Plains. You've been screwed by the Sam Rand Twins. So have the people in Lents -- so have we all. And you won't be the last -- the folks in Stafford are next, and there'll be more.

We've stopped throwing food slop into our green bin. It's disgusting, and it's not fair to our neighbors who have to live downwind from the stink. We compost vegetable waste in a worm bin, and send the meat and grains to the landfill in Arlington, which doesn't have a problem with them.