letters
TO THE EDITOR
of the new hour to “Wal-Mart Saving
Time.” I mean, go all the way if you’re
gonna go at all.
Glenn Leonard
Eugene
PAINFUL REALITY
It is a big job to raise a child these days,
even more so as we try to combat the
onslaught of hazardous items that come
our way. The scandals of lead-tainted toys
and toxic baby bottles shocked many of us.
Camilla Mortensen’s Feb. 28 cover story,
“Small Town, Big Clearcut,” brought
another painful reality to light: Our children
are exposed to harmful pesticides.
Two billion pounds of pesticides are
used each year in the U.S. That includes
pesticides used by homeowners; it includes
pesticides sprayed around schools and
parks; and it includes pesticides sprayed on
our food. Pesticides do not stay where they
are applied. They fi nd their way into our
air, our water and even our bodies.
A recent study of Seattle-area children
found that eating organic food protects
children from harmful pesticides.
Researchers consistently found signs of
insecticides in the urine of children who
ate conventional food. When those same
children switched to a mostly organic
diet, the researchers could not detect the
presence of the chemicals.
While concerned parents are acting
wisely to rid pesticides outside school
buildings, the Northwest Coalition for
Alternatives (NCAP) to Pesticides is also
working to eliminate pesticides inside the
school cafeteria. By serving organic food,
schools will reduce children’s exposure
to pesticides, provide students with more
nutritious food and help create a sustainable
world for the future. It is time to recognize
the hazards of pesticides and do what we
can to support alternatives. Eating organic
is part of that effort.
Aimee Code
NCAP, Eugene
LOCAL REPRESENTATION
In a recent letter to the R-G (3/3),
Senator Bill Morrisette praises the
Springfi eld practice of having councilors
voted on by the whole city, rather than
being elected by ward, as is the case in
fumbling, incompetent Eugene. None of
that pesky minority representation of the
far side of I-5. What a great idea!
But he doesn’t go far enough. Why not
have Lane Commissioners selected by the
entire county? That way we wouldn’t be
bothered by all those rural concerns; those
voters only make up about a third of the
population anyway.
And what about in at the state level?
Much better to have senators and
representatives for all, not just for local
districts. Of course, Morrisette may have a
harder time getting elected then, but what
the heck? Gotta have that Portland-area
majority check on minority input.
Matter of fact, let’s extend this to the
whole country! Wouldn’t you love to have
your “local” rep chosen in large part by folks
from California, New York and Texas? Call
it “getting the nation’s act together.”
Sarcasm aside, it’s members like Bill
Morrisette who have helped push me away
from the Democrat Party. But I’m sure the
Chamber of Commerce still loves him.
That little group always seems to be well-
represented.
Bill Smee
Springfi eld
WINTER OLYMPICS
Mark Robinowitz (2/28) is as frustrated
as I am with mainstream antiwar groups.
We’re in Year Eight of the Bush dictatorship,
and American delusionaries are still using
minimal effort and useless routines to stop
the march of The Empire’s global conquest.
Perhaps these people are living in a state of
denial over the real reasons behind 9/11.
Perhaps they’re fearful of arrest.
Delusionaries are probably stressed
out trying to decide which corporate-
DESIGNMATTERS
BY JERRY DIETHELM
Of Time and
the Riverfront
Some seasoned ideas on EWEB site planning
ourteen years ago I pointed out that it made no sense to have an EWEB
maintenance yard squatting on the city’s most promising point of connection
to its downtown riverfront. I’m talking about the area that extends south from
the EWEB headquarters building to the old Art Deco steam plant.
This was a very unwelcome observation at the time. EWEB had just concluded
a yearlong master planning process and had concluded that it would be best
to consolidate their operations on this riverfront site for the foreseeable future.
Exceptions to their hard-won conclusions proved awkward at best.
Ah, the foreseeable future. I guess it depends on who’s doing the foreseeing.
At the time, I was the city’s lead planning and urban design consultant for the
Ferry Street Bridge Corridor project, examining the transformative potential of the
south and north banks of the river that might accompany a replacement of the 1949
bridge.
I foresaw, for example, that a new Ferry Street Bridge could be designed to touch
land a little farther north than the present one does along Club Road, allowing a
wide green strip of Alton Baker Park and a new south-facing esplanade to extend
beneath the bridge landing and create a new north shore.
A rebuilt and realigned viaduct could create a signifi cantly wider and more
accessible EWEB site instead of crowding the old quonset hut storage building as
it now does. Careful engineering studies at the time proved, much to my personal
disappointment, that it wouldn’t be feasible to eliminate the viaduct altogether and
dive beneath the railroad tracks because of the long distance it takes to ramp down
and then to get back up. Plus there was the additional problem in this area of the
need for constant tunnel dewatering due to the high water table of a river terrace.
I asked EWEB steam plant managers if they foresaw the phasing out of their
hogged fuel pile, the small mountain of leftover forest waste that they fed into their
furnaces to produce steam. Not in the foreseeable future, they responded. But the
university was already phasing their pile out, and it seemed clear — at least to some
— that there would likely be another transitional site of opportunity on the EWEB
riverfront.
Dorothy Anderson, then an EWEB board member, thought the sawdust mountain
site might make an excellent Millrace confl uence park and the steam plant a fi ne
museum. We should probably ask our authentic local visionaries to all wear red
F
6 MARCH 13, 2008 EUGENE WEEKLY
socks — or some kind of distinguishing mark — so that
there’s a better way to tell when one’s around.
We voted not to replace the old bridge, but in the
process learned valuable planning lessons about the
potential reuse of the EWEB site whenever we returned to returning to the river.
T
ime passed. And it still made no sense to have a maintenance yard as our
downtown riverfront connection, not even to EWEB, who began to look
for a new location.
Anticipating a move, a city-hired California consultant recommended an ambitious
plan for mixed-use riverfront development, which included the extension of 6th and
7th Avenues along the railroad corridor. I pointed out the impact of such a wide
barrier, over 200 feet, that this would create.
Did it make any sense that in a time when other cities were tearing down their
riverfront barriers that we were about to build our own? Did anyone realize that if
we ever wanted to get people, cars and perhaps the Millrace under that barrier —
two state highway right-of-ways and a 60-foot railroad right-of-way — that it would
be like traveling under the length of a Portland city block? I called it the rat-hole to
the river. Wisely, the city dropped relocating 7th Aveune, a third of the barrier, from
the mix.
Next came the potential location of McKenzie-Willamette-Triad Hospital on the
EWEB site. It provided an additional dislodging nudge to EWEB and re-raised the
critical issue of site access. It would take $12.5 million to adequately provide for
hospital access on the riverfront. Why? Because of the railroad and the addition of
6th Avenue that blocked the connection.
The transportation consultant’s solution was to extend Patterson north from
Broadway and tunnel under the highway and the tracks. We’re quite fortunate the
hospital fi nally jumped site because this wouldn’t have worked either. This misplaced
underpass was to resurface in the narrow space in front of the steam plant where
there was no room to climb out of a 20’ hole gracefully. I named this scheme, “Return
to the river in trenches.”
Today, a new group is being formed to plan the future of the EWEB site. With the
benefi t of 20-20 hindsight, I’ll offer the following free advice:
1. Don’t underestimate the problem of riverfront access. Access and land use are
fl ip sides of the same coin.
2. Two up and one down. That is, keep the two existing RR crossings, the one at
5th and the one at Hilyard (no matter what UP wants), and add a signifi cant new
portal in the middle, east of the new courthouse. Hint: You’ll need the city-owned
triangle of land east of the U.S. Courthouse to make this work.
3. Follow the Millrace back to the river.
Jerry Diethelm is a Eugene architect, landscape architect, and planning and urban design consultant.
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