Eugene weekly., January 29, 2015, Page 10, Image 10

THE WILLAMETTE RIVER
RUNNING THROUGH
GLENWOOD CIRCA 1973.
PHOTO TAKEN FOR THE
WILLAMETTE GREENWAY
PROJECT.
‘Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour, and is not reminded of
the flux of all things? Throw a stone into the stream, and the circles
that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence.’
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
Riverfront
Conversations
COULD COLLABORATION BRING A HEALTHIER RIVERFRONT?
S
it beside the river and sip a glass of wine after
a long day at work. Lay yourself down by the
river and relax after a long run. Go fishing, go
rafting, go wading, go birdwatching.
As winter slowly starts to wind down, our
river dreams start to flow. The Willamette
River winds through Eugene and Springfield,
and the McKenzie flows on the outskirts of
town, but how often do we really see it from
our urban streets?
Historically, city dwellers in Eugene and Springfield
didn’t really view the riverfront as something to preserve
for its clean water or ecological values, nor did they see it
as a place to put cafés or open spaces to enjoy the scenery.
The urban riverfront, prone to flooding, became home to
gravel pits, dumps and industrial sites in Lane County’s
early days.
But when the Willamette’s dams were completed in
the 1960s, flooding was reduced (sadly, so was the salmon
population) and the nature of riverfront development was
primed for change. Fifty years later, it hasn’t changed
that much. Gravel pits still pockmark the Willamette in
north Eugene, and Glenwood’s riverfront is industrial and
hemmed in with rip-rapped rock.
Now, as the city of Springfield envisions a new
Glenwood riverfront, and as the UO Foundation looks
10
J a n u a r y 29 , 2015 • e u g e n e w e e k l y . c o m
— BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
to develop the Eugene Water and Electric Board site and
as more opportunities arrive to bring the riverfront to the
public eye, the question arises: Will the communities of
Eugene and Springfield take up the challenge to not merely
build along the river but protect it and connect it to the
surrounding community? Is the answer a river commission,
committee or study group?
‘A river is more than an amenity — it is a treasure
that offers a necessity of life that must be rationed
among those who have the power over it.’
— Oliver Wendell Holmes,
U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Whether you are drinking from them (as water, beer or
whiskey), building alongside them or working to preserve
them, Lane County’s peaceful rivers are a controversial
subject, leading easily to fighting and disagreements.
But in order to preserve the river and its beauty, people,
agencies and municipalities need to get along to some
degree. Bringing up the idea of a committee to guide how
the area’s riverfront develops arouses painful memories of
past attempts to protect Eugene’s drinking water.
Eugene gets its water from the McKenzie, some of
which flows through the Willamette National Forest and
some of which flows through Lane County lands. In
2010, Lane County attempted to protect water quality,
health and property by limiting future development in
the floodway, floodplain and riparian area. A furor arose
among homeowners, and 400 angry people showed up at
a meeting to discuss the plan. Not long after the crowd
attempted to force a recital of the Pledge of Allegiance, the
proposal was tabled by the Lane County Commission.
Mentioning a commission or a committee to guide
riverfront development stirs up those bad memories for
people like Joe Moll of the McKenzie River Trust. His
nonprofit has worked to restore gravel pits near its Green
Island property at the McKenzie River’s confluence with
the Willamette north of Eugene as well as collaborated
with EWEB to create the Berggren Demonstration Farm,
which showcases the connections between clean water and
farming.
A commission could add value to policy makers by
providing distilled, thoughtful information, Moll says,
despite his caution. “I’d love to see the ends that a well-
functioning board could produce.”
Committees in the past have been successful at protecting
the waterways. In the 1960s and ’70s as the dams sprang
up, so did the idea of the Willamette Greenway, a state and