Two Oakridge business owners blast TV Butte rock quarry plans as crucial Aug. 3 hearing approaches

By DOUG BATES/Editor/The Herald — Owners of a pair of outdoor-recreation businesses in Oakridge have published a scathing guest column in the Eugene newspaper, warning that county approval of a rock quarry on TV Butte could be the ruin of the community.

The opinion piece, appearing in the Sunday, July 25 Register-Guard, was co-authored by Kirin Stryker, owner of Cog Wild Bicycle Tours, a mountain bike ride and shuttle company based in Oakridge, and Mckenzie Bowerman, owner of Willamette Mountain Mercantile, an Oakridge bike and outdoor shop.

Their harsh criticism of the Old Hazeldell Quarry proposal comes just days before Lane County Commissioners are scheduled to take yet another vote on the project, which they have already approved twice.

Stryker and Bowerman urged commissioners to take a road trip instead.

“Before making a decision on this project, we encourage Lane County’s commissioners to visit our town, learn more about the impacts of the proposed quarry, and experience the transitioning economy themselves,” the business duo wrote. “The commissioners don’t just need to take our word for it; the mayors of Oakridge and Westfir and locals and business owners alike oppose this shortsighted proposal, which threatens all that we have been working to create in our special town for the past two decades.”

The plan, called Old Hazeldell Quarry, seeks to transform 46 acres of the forested hillside into 17 million tons of high-quality crushed andesite rock that could be sold for highway construction.

Residents of the Dunning Road neighborhood on the butte’s flanks, along with other Oakridge residents, fiercely object. They say silica dust from gravel crushing will exacerbate the town’s air pollution problem while desecrating a former Native American burial site and destroying an important calving area for the local elk herd, among other issues such as excessive noise, truck traffic and groundwater contamination.

Nevertheless, county commissioners approved rezoning for the quarry in 2016. Opponents appealed to LUBA, Oregon’s Land Use Board of Appeals, and won a pair of victories, first in 2018 and again in 2019. LUBA ruled that the county had made procedural errors and that commissioners must hold a new public hearing on the quarry proposal.

That public event, called a remand hearing, was held in April, then continued repeatedly until the commissioners’ Aug. 3 meeting.

“The proposed quarry would be an eyesore at the bottom of one of the area’s most iconic mountain bike descents, the Eugene to Crest Trail, and would degrade the view east of town for residents and visitors alike,” Stryker and Bowerman wrote. “A gravel pit that generates significant amounts of silica dust, which was first listed as a known human carcinogen in 1996 by the World Health Organization, from the blasting, crushing and hauling of gravel along Dunning Road is bad for residents and tourists who are engaged in outdoor activities.

“The communities of Oakridge and Westfir are already air-quality compromised, having consistently been rated among the worst 20 communities in the U.S. for air quality, and the Environmental Protection Agency recently granted our town $4.9 million to address the air quality issues we already face due to woodfire smoke through clean heating improvements.”

Readers of The Herald can see the couple’s entire commentary here.