DR. DARIN J. WARD
BY ALAN PITTMAN
HEALTH
CENTERED
DENTISTRY
NOW PLAYING!
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By taking a holistic approach
and arranging for health rather
than merely treating disease, we
offer an opportunity to restore
your oral health to its optimum.
Book & Lyrics by
Gerome Ragni & James Rado
Music by Galt MacDermot
Directed & Designed by Joe Zingo
We look at the whole picture,
consider health and underlying
factors, and take steps to perfect
your smile while preventing
problems before they occur.
Featuring the hit songs:
"Hair" - "Aquarius"
"Let the Sunshine In"
and many more!
Now through July 26, 2003
DR. DARIN J. WARD, DDS PC
HEALTH CENTERED DENTISTRY
300 COUNTRY CLUB RD., STE. 290
EUGENE, OR 97401 • (541) 686-2441
Cabaret Theater, 996 Willamette
AUDITIONS!
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Live Music ~ Hands-On
Fun for Kids
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Cabaret Theater, 996 Willamette
New LOWER ticket prices!
683-4368
www.ActorsCabaret.org
Children’s
Celebration
10am-4pm
Saturday, July 12
Island Park, Springfield
Admission is $3/person or $10/family
Take a FREE
LTD shuttle bus
from the
Springfield bus
station or
the Booth Kelly
parking lot on
Main Street.
10 JULY 10, 2003
Gravel Pits
Industry bill threatens River Road, state farmland.
T
wo years ago, Lane County shot
down an unpopular bid by Eugene
Sand and Gravel to turn hundreds of
acres of prime, scenic River Road farmland
into a gravel pit.
Now, lobbyists for the state gravel industry
have pushed a bill through both houses of the
state legislature that critics fear could grease
the skids for another attack on River Road and
prime farmland throughout the state.
“It’s basically mining anywhere,” says
Carrie MacLaren, staff attorney with 1,000
Friends of Oregon.
“It threatens all of the prime farmland in
the valley,” says Mark Reed, a UO geology
professor who helped lead the fight against
the proposed River Road pit.
Current state land-use laws restrict gravel
mining in high quality farmland where aggre-
gate deposits don’t meet certain minimum
quality criteria. But House Bill 3013, now in
a House-Senate conference committee, could
let counties decide to allow top farmland to
be destroyed for even low quality gravel de-
posits.
“There basically is no farmland under
3013 that would be deemed important to pro-
tect,” MacLaren says, adding, “There’s no
balance” in the bill in between protecting
farmland and allowing mining.
“This bill appears to be geared to circum-
vent the problems Eugene Sand had out here”
in the River Road area, says Reed.
Reed says Eugene Sand and Gravel’s pit
was denied by the county and by the state
Land Use Board of Appeals and is now before
the state appeals court. “They’re trying to
change the laws to push it through at a later
time,” he says. The River Road pit still could
face hurdles in showing it would have mini-
mal traffic, dust, groundwater and flooding
impacts on surrounding farmland. But if “this
[bill] passed it could definitely make it easier
for them,” Reed says. “The bar is lower.”
Ironically, provisions in the bill could
make it even easier to mine in areas with high
quality farmland but poor quality gravel, ac-
cording to Reed. “It’s a backwards twist on
the intent of the protections,” he says.
Another key provision in the bill would
weaken farming protections from gravel pit
dust, according to Reed. Currently, counties
are allowed to refuse a mining permit be-
cause of a “significant” dust impact on neigh-
boring farms. The new law would set a rigid
standard of what is significant using Oregon
Department of Environmental Quality re-
strictions on dust pollution levels that are un-
safe to breathe.
Reed says the proposed dust standard is
too weak and doesn’t take into account that
farm stands in River Road are much more
vulnerable to dust than cannery farms or
grass seed growers. Raspberry farmers, for
example, can’t wash their berries of dust
without turning them to “mush” that no one
would buy, Reed says. “Not all farms are the
same.”
Gravel industry lobbyists at the Oregon
Concrete and Aggregate Producers
Association pushed the bill after the defeat of
Eugene Sand and Gravel’s proposed pit and
another pit near Roseburg. In that case,
Beaver State Sand and Gravel lost at the
county, LUBA and court of appeals in a bid to
mine farmland. Bill Austin, a neighboring
farmer to the proposed Roseburg pit, told the
Capital Press, “I feel most farmers and
ranchers would be opposed to this [HB
3013]. I’m not against taking alluvial rock,
but I’m against taking the best farmland in
Oregon to do it.”
“It threatens all of the prime
farmland in the valley,” says
Mark Reed, a UO geology
professor.
Reed says mined farmland can’t be re-
stored afterward and is forever lost. Even if
topsoil is replaced, removing so much mate-
rial from the pit creates low lands that are
prone to flooding, he says.
Proponents of the gravel bill say it’s
needed to provide mining and construction
jobs in the down economy. MacLaren says
protecting “farmland is critical to our state’s
economy and it’s critical to our quality of
life.” Farming is a $3.5 billion industry in
Oregon and provides 8 percent of the state’s
jobs, according to 1,000 Friends.
Versions of 3013 have so far passed easily
in both houses of the legislature. In May, the
House voted for the bill 41-16. Last month,
the Senate passed it 17-9. But it’s uncertain
what, if any bill will emerge from the confer-
ence committee and whether it will be signed
by the governor. The gravel industry is a
powerful lobby in the legislature but the bill
is also opposed by the Oregon Farm Bureau,
League of Conservation Voters and League
of Women Voters.
The bill “has legs” and is moving through
the legislature, MacLaren says. But its fate,
and that of farmland in River Road and around
the state, “is up in the air right now.”
ew