A2 Hood River News,
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
G REATER G ORGE
www.hoodrivernews.com
Walmart site in The Dalles appealed again
BY NEITA CECIL
The Dalles Chronicle
A local citizens group op-
posing a proposed Walmart
superstore in The Dalles has
appealed for a second time a
wetlands permit issued to the
retail giant.
Citizens for Responsible De-
velopment in The Dalles filed
an appeal Dec. 5 with the Ore-
gon Court of Appeals of a
final order by the Oregon De-
partment of State Lands
granting Walmart a permit to
fill and remove wetlands.
The citizens group first ap-
pealed the permit after it was
granted in May 2013. The ap-
peal was heard in June 2014
before an administrative law
judge, who ruled the permit
could stand. In October, the
department of state lands is-
sued its final order imple-
menting the judge’s ruling,
and the citizens group filed its
appeal of the final order two
months later.
Walmart spokesperson
Delia Garcia said, “Our
plans for the new store in
The Dalles have weathered
extensive review and legal
scrutiny — and been ap-
proved at each and every
step. The community has
been very suppor tive
throughout this prolonged
process and we appreciate
their patience. We look for-
ward to the day we can pro-
vide our customers in the
Gorge with an affordable op-
tion for the items that they
need and use every day.”
John Nelson, a lead mem-
ber of the citizen group, said
that, “As we have challenged
it, Walmart has changed their
solution, making it better and
better and better.”
The group still opposes the
placement of the 18.1-acre
Walmart site, near the junc-
tion of Interstate 84 and exit
82, which has some 49 rare
wetlands called vernal pools
scattered around it.
Walmart plans to build a
147,782 square-foot super-
store on the property com-
prising retail, grocery and
garden center, with 8.2 acres
of parking lot, two acres of
service area, and two acres of
landscaping. In all, it would
cover some 16.1 acres of land
with buildings and parking
lots, all impervious surfaces
which would cause runoff
when it rains.
Walmart is proposing a se-
ries of bioswales — densely
vegetated shallow ditches —
that will collect and naturally
filter the runoff before it is
sent to either wetlands or the
storm sewer system. The
storm runoff system will fil-
ter out pollutants and sedi-
ments before discharging
treated runoff into a wide
rocky area upland of
Chenoweth Creek.
Karl Anuta, a Portland at-
torney representing the citi-
zen group, said several points
will be raised on appeal. The
first, he said, is whether the
department of state lands is
required to find a public bene-
fit for a project in order to
allow wetlands to be filled.
The department argued –
and the judge agreed – that
such findings are only re-
quired for projects affecting
estuaries. Anuta contends the
relevant case law is broader
than that and is meant to in-
clude all wetlands.
Following the June 2014
hearing, the judge determined
it was “inconclusive” whether
a public benefit existed.
He said this project will be
built on top of vernal pools,
shallow depressions that are
wet in the rainy season but
dry the rest of the year. The
October final order said ver-
nal pools are among the rarest
wetlands in the state and are
“exceptionally difficult” to re-
create.
“We felt filling them with-
out a public benefit finding
did not make sense,” Anuta
said.
Anuta said the second
major issue is “the failure of
the department to require
Walmart to consider a smaller
store as an alternative to the
big superstore that Walmart
wanted to do.”
The judge found Walmart’s
analysis of nine other sites —
which Anuta claimed was an
insincere attempt to find an
alternate — was thorough and
reasonable.
The citizens group pro-
posed a two-story store with
parking garage that would’ve
taken up less space on the site.
Walmart said such a build-
ing would be too costly to
build in a rural area, because
it doesn’t have a large enough
customer base to recoup costs,
and the judge agreed, saying
the company had a right to
make a profit.
In 2010, Walmart did shrink
its parking lot 12 percent,
eliminating 92 spaces, to re-
duce impacts on wetlands. It
also moved the storm sewer
outfall pipe well inland, away
from its original outfall direct-
ly into Chenoweth Creek,
which could have eroded the
creekbed.
One change that came out
of the June hearing was
adding a device to the
stormwater drainage system
that will control whether
storm runoff goes into the
stormwater system or into
wetlands.
The dam-like structure will
send high and low amounts of
storm runoff into the storm
system, but send mid-range
amounts into wetlands. The
goal is to mimic as much as
possible the natural water
cycle of the site.
Anuta said the citizens
group believes the dam-like
structures will not be self-sus-
taining, as the law requires.
Walmart will have to moni-
tor the dams for two years to
make needed adjustments,
and from then on, they would
be self-sustaining, according
to the final order.
Bioswales will naturally fil-
ter runoff, and filters will me-
chanically filter them. Other
methods of preventing water
pollution from runoff will in-
clude regularly sweeping the
parking lot.
While the citizens group
contended the system would
improperly require too much
maintenance, contrary to the
notion of being self-sustain-
ing, the department’s final
order, written by its director,
said, “I find that spending four
hours per year on mowing the
bioswales is not a regular or
frequent activity.”
The final order also notes
the land deed has restrictions
requiring the maintenance be
done in perpetuity. The per-
mit will require seven years of
monitoring of the wetlands
and the property’s storm
drainage system.
During the hearing, Anuta
said Walmart’s plan is “based
on a ‘trust me’ approach.” He
said, “This lack of regular
monitoring is astonishing.”
Under the permit, Walmart
will be allowed to permanent-
ly impact 2.174 acres of wet-
lands, and about .52 acres of
that was occupied by a non-
threatened species of fairy
shrimp, according to a 2009
federal survey of the site.
State law requires projects
that impact wetlands to miti-
gate the damage by several
methods, including either cre-
ating new wetlands onsite or
elsewhere.
May Street Elementary
hosts Battle of Books
May Street Elementary is
hosting the second annual
Gorge OBOB Invitational
Sunday, noon to 3 p.m.
This is a fun day for kids to
practice battle against teams
from other schools in ad-
vance of their school and Re-
gional competitions (which
happen in late Febr u-
ary/early March). Fifteen
teams from Parkdale, West-
side, Mosier Community
School and May Street Ele-
mentary will attend, with
over 60 kids expected to join
the fun. These kids have
been working hard to pre-
pare; as a team, they must
read 16 books and be ready to
answer questions in only 15
seconds.
Walmart chose to recreate
them on-site. It plans to create
1.33 acres of new wetlands, re-
store .64 acres of damaged
wetlands, enhance .58 acres of
wetlands, and preserve 2.42
acres of wetlands. It will also
preserve 7.75 acres of uplands
that feed into the wetlands.
The project is 250 feet from
Chenoweth Creek, which has
a number of species of pro-
tected fish in it, and is 3,500
feet from the Columbia River.
Walmart experts argued the
drainage system on the site
uses the most restrictive rules
in the state for treating
stormwater pollutants.
A department of state lands
employee testified that “the
permit conditions are some of
the most comprehensive and
robust ever required by the de-
partment,” the final order
stated.
WEEKLY SUDOKU
This week’s Sudoku presented by:
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Answers on Page A9
Fill in all 81 squares on the puzzle with numbers 1 to 9. You can use
each number 1-9 only once in each nine square section, in each
horizontal line of nine squares, and in each vertical column of nine
squares. The puzzle is completed when you correctly fill every square.
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