Eugene weekly., November 15, 2012, Page 13, Image 13

WARMER WATERS
In recent years restoration projects along the Willamette
have tried to undo some of the effects of past wrongs to the
river. Moll’s McKenzie River Trust works to restore
islands, side channels and woody debris. Watershed
councils work to restore tributaries such as the Long Tom
River and in urban Eugene the Be Noble Foundation is
trying to buy the land where the headwaters of Amazon
Creek lie. But the river is facing a new challenge, one that
though we recognize it, we aren’t required to plan for:
climate change.
“We’re expecting more winter rain instead of snow, less
snowpack, less late spring and summer flows,” says Babe
O’Sullivan, the city of Eugene’s sustainability liaison.
Lower summer flows could affect the river’s ability to
dilute wastewater and more winter flooding could bring
more contaminants into the water.
“The plans that are currently in place don’t account for
climate change but it’s something we are working on,”
O’Sullivan says.
Matt McRae, a climate and energy analyst with the City
Manager’s Office, says that they are specifically looking at
critical infrastructure — things like hospitals, police
departments, fire departments, schools because they tend
to be shelters — and making a plan to over time to move
infrastructure away from the river, outside of the flood
zone, because of a recognition that “that flooding is likely
to intensify here, both river flooding and urban flooding in
the streets.”
When Eugene does its planning around the Willamette,
it takes into account natural disasters such as historic
flooding and earthquakes, says Carolyn Burke from the
city of Eugene’s Planning Division. It also takes into
account statewide planning goals that were put into place
to protect timber and farming and prevent urban sprawl.
Goal 5 sets standards for open spaces, scenic and historic
areas and natural resources. Goal 15 established the
Willamette Greenway, which says that space, public
access, native vegetation and scenic views must be
considered when planning new developments. Though
Nena Lovinger of LandWatch Lane County warns, “The
Willamette River Greenway Program has good intentions
but no teeth.” She says, “It lacks strong legal hooks needed
to prevent development that damages natural, scenic and
historical aspects of the riverine environment.”
That riverine environment is altering thanks to climate
change, but according to Philip Mote of the Oregon Climate
Change Research Institute (OCCRI), most state and
municipal governments are not required to use best available
science to plan for future issues, such as global warming.
Eugene and Lane County are no different, but Eugene is
trying to take a different tack, according to McRae, and
bring climate change into the equation in its planning.
“We need to look at risk as changing over time,” he says.
McRae says that though the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) is coming out with new
planning maps, those new maps don’t include climate
change as a variable, and the maps are not going to project
climate change onto projected precipitation patterns. As
part of Envision Eugene, in which the city is planning
growth for the next 20 years, the city is considering taking
climate change into the equation, something that is key
when dealing with a living river flowing through town.
Eugene and Springfield haven’t always made the best
planning decisions for critical infrastructure even based on
historical data. Sacred Heart’s RiverBend hospital was
built in a floodplain and the Eugene Police Department’s
recent move to Country Club Road puts those emergency
responders in the floodplain as well, leaving those
emergency services vulnerable in a flood.
McRae says the city is “chipping away” at improving
the way it deals with stormwater, partnering with the Long
Tom Watershed Council to retrofit existing private
properties along Amazon Creek, whose waters eventually
flow into the Willamette, with features such as bioswales,
raingardens and permeable pavement.
According to OCCRI, climate change-induced increasing
rain and decreasing snow in the Cascades will affect water
supplies: “Recent research, using sophisticated observations,
climate models and Northwest U.S. hydrological models,
indicates that as much as 60 percent of these changes in the
water cycle result from human activities. The chances for a
water crisis are high in Oregon.”
Warmer and lower-flowing streams affect water quality
for humans and fish, more frequent storms mean paved
urban areas will be more prone to flooding and warmer
temperatures and less water in the summer means more
unmet demand for water.
And McRae says, “Everybody acknowledges that no
one has a crystal ball” when it comes to population
projections, and he says that climate change could throw a
“wild card” into predicting the amount of people who
could move to Eugene in the next 20 years, possibly
fleeing drought and rising temperatures in areas like the
Southwest, and competing for space and water.
While Eugene doesn’t currently pull its drinking water
from the Willamette, we do send our treated and cleaned
sewage into it. And downstream cities such as Corvallis pull
their water from the river. Lance Robertson of Eugene Water
and Electric Board says that EWEB has an interest in the
Willamette as a backup source for water because Eugene,
which gets its water from the McKenzie, is “one overturned
chemical tanker truck on Hwy. 126 from being out of water.”
WATER WOES
One thing that Eugene does have along the river is
parkland, says Jeff Krueger of the Lane Council of
Governments. He has been part of a Rivers to Ridges
partnership that asked people to envision what they would
like to see the river be in 30 years. There are 15 miles of paths
along the Willamette corridor, he says, and one of the things
people wanted for the river was connectivity. He says to
picture the Willamette as a necklace with parks such as Mt.
Pisgah, Dorris Ranch and Alton Baker as its pearls. Some, he
says, need polishing while others need to be added.
Delta Ponds is an addition that is cited often. Former
gravel pits, the ponds have been rehabilitated, Krueger
says, into recreation and habitat where you can find
juvenile Chinook salmon, western pond turtles and other
native species. The extension of the paths in Delta Ponds
in particular has really good benefits in terms of public use
and getting people down to the river, Krueger says. They
give direct river access to a huge population of north
Eugene. Pointing to the ponds and to other bike and open
space projects, he says, “No one should drive 40 miles for
a bike ride or to get into a canoe.”
“In our area we have very little development that goes
right up to the river that is residential or retail,” says
Krueger, a landscape architect, adding, “Older commercial,
industrial uses may not be the highest and best use for
urban portions of the river.”
Those commercial and industrial uses have, and will
continue to have, effects upon the river through town.
While the gravel pits at Delta Ponds were shallow — only
12 to 15 feet deep — and made for good ecological
restoration, other pits that are along the river are more than
100 feet deep, sometimes as much as 200 feet deep making
them difficult, if not impossible to restore.
Moll points out that at least one portion of Alton Baker
Park was historically a dump site, and he wonders what
effects flooding could have on what remains there. The
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality says the
dump accepted liquid and chemical wastes from the JH
Baxter wood treatment plant, possibly including creosote,
coal tar, pentachlorophenol and chlorodibenzodioxins, but
information on hazardous materials disposed at the
landfill is not available for most of the 11 years of
operation. In 1974 when the landfill closed, the entire site
was covered with a minimum of two feet of sandy, silty
loam and grass was planted over it.
WATER IS TREATED AT A
PULP MILL BEFORE BEING
DISCHARGED INTO THE
WILL AMET TE
PHOTO BY CAMILL A MORTENSEN • AERIAL SUPPORT BY LIGHTHAWK
eugeneweekly.com • November 15, 2012
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