By DOUG BATES/Editor/The Herald — Sixteen people, some of them fighting back strong emotions, told Lane County commissioners Tuesday that a rock quarry proposed for Oakridge would ruin the community.
“Outdoor recreation is huge in Oakridge. Do not destroy it,” said Kirin Stryker, co-owner of the Cog Wild mountain bike guide service.
She was part of a chorus of Oakridge-Westfir residents and business people who testified in a critical hearing on plans for a major quarry and gravel-crushing operation that would carve up 46 acres on a scenic hilltop at the east edge of town.
Only one member of the public, a Springfield quarry operator, testified in favor of the proposal.
“Open a winery. Open a tasting room. But please don’t do this,” pleaded Stryker, who lives in Bend but has invested heavily with her husband Lev Stryker in the Cog Wild bicycle shuttle and tour company in Oakridge.
Her winery reference was directed at Ed King III, the wealthy co-founder of King Estates winery near Eugene. Six years ago King asked the county to rezone the tree-covered Oakridge butte from forestland to quarry use so he could develop a large-scale operation that would spend the next 50 years producing 17 million tons of gravel for road construction.
Hearing continued until May 4
County commissioners approved King’s application in 2016 and a small band of Oakridge-Westfir advocates has been fighting it ever since. Their appeals to LUBA, the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals, were successful, and it ordered the remand hearing that was held Tuesday. The three-hour event ended with commissioners agreeing to continue the hearing on May 4 to give themselves time to review additional written testimony.
It consists of about two dozen emails that reflect many of the same objections raised in Tuesday’s emotion-packed hearing on the quarry plan.
“The impacts are not significant? Not significant for whom?” said an indignant Keegan Caughlin of Oakridge. “For those of us who live here, the impacts will be highly significant.”
King’s Old Hazeldell Quarry proposal acknowledges adverse impacts but claims they meet lawful criteria for not being significant. They include air pollution, noise, air shock, ground vibration, wildlife disturbance, truck traffic and water issues.
“This quarry is so ill-advised,” said Mavis Pas of Oakridge, noting that the site abuts a former public garbage pit filled with decades of refuse, now covered. “I can see no good reason for this except greed.”
The proposal predicts that it would create about 10 new jobs at the outset. There are no assurances that these jobs would be filled by Oakridge residents, however.
Calving elk would be displaced
Alissa Mayer, who moved to Oakridge in 2015 and operates a private equine facility where she teaches horsemanship and somatics, said her animals would sense the quarry blasting, and that would destroy her business. Her voice quavering, she said the quarry could force her to relocate to another community.
Others cited the disruption predicted for big game on the butte — cougars, black bears, deer and especially elk, which inhabit the butte heavily during calving seasons.
Oakridge Mayor Kathy Holston expressed worry for the town’s air quality, already compromised at times by smoke from wildfires and woodstoves. Adding silica dust from gravel operations to this particulate matter “is a real concern,” she said.
Oakridge business leader Mick Garvin ticked off an entire litany of unacceptable impacts, including the addition of 10 gravel trucks an hour on Fish Hatchery Road, “a major mountain bike route.”
Garvin asked pointedly why the commissioners had sided with “a bunch of outsiders over the communities of Oakridge and Westfir.”
“This is irresponsible and wrong,” said Brian Krokus of Oakridge.
Charlie Tufti’s ancestral land
“Do the right thing this time,” said Linda McMahon, leader of the anti-quarry campaign called Save TV Butte.
That’s the name her group gave to the site, which has no official name on maps. It used to be the site of old analog TV towers before the advent of cable and satellite transmission. Longtime residents know the butte mainly as the ancestral land of Native Americans in the area, most notably Molalla elder Charlie Tufti, subject of local legend in Oakridge.
In his rebuttal to the critics, Portland lawyer Seth King, representing Ed King (no relation), said the cultural issue involving Native American heritage at the site is “off the table” because it wasn’t included in LUBA’s order for the remand hearing. He argued that the same is true of quarry water issues and impact on Oakridge business and tourism, which he said are “not within the scope” of the remand.
The lawyer dismissed all of the citizen complaints as “speculation,” while the quarry applicant’s case is built “entirely on expert testimony.”
Groans and head-scratching
County Commissioner Heather Buch, who was not on the board in 2016 when it approved the quarry, noted that LUBA’s remand order does have seven items it said should have further review, including silica dust mitigation and the displacement of big game on the butte.
“Displacement is a good thing,” argued lawyer Seth King in his rebuttal, evoking a few groans among opponents.
Two of the commissioners, both supporters of the quarry when it was first approved, made similar head-scratching remarks.
Patt Farr, representing the county’s North Eugene district, said Oakridge needed a lot of gravel for its “new gymnasium” project.
Jay Bozievich, representing the West Lane district, said the U.S. Forest Service has a “huge” demand for gravel, which it needs for maintaining its network of forest roads “for side-by-sides.”
There is no new gymnasium being built in Oakridge, and much of the Forest Service network of logging roads is in dangerous disrepair for lack of timber revenue to rebuild them.
The May 4 virtual hearing is set for 1:30 p.m. To view it go online to lanecounty.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=3585881&pageId=7842434
Herald Editor Doug Bates is a retired newspaper editor who lives in Oakridge.
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