An Oct. 9 guest viewpoint by Arnold Buchman criticized the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition for appealing a March 2006 decision by Lane County to amend its Coastal Resource Management Plan to allow riprap at the Shelter Cove subdivision in Florence.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Allison Asbjornsen For The Register-Guard

An Oct. 9 guest viewpoint by Arnold Buchman criticized the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition for appealing a March 2006 decision by Lane County to amend its Coastal Resource Management Plan to allow riprap at the Shelter Cove subdivision in Florence. We appealed for good reason.

Oregon Shores appealed because there is a real difficulty with riprap on the Siuslaw River, a difficulty that the county and the city of Florence have not been facing. Erosion of the riverbank is a long-standing concern, but the city ignored it in approving development there 15 years ago. The problems will only worsen over time - to the detriment of all homes along the Siuslaw River, not just those at Shelter Cove.

Rivers move over time, and erosion is a natural process. Riprap may stop erosion in one place, but it cannot stop those natural forces. Usually, the end result is to push erosion problems to other locations. There is erosion at Shelter Cove because there is erosion control elsewhere on the river. The Shelter Cove area may benefit from riprap, but the cost is that the problem will simply be pushed elsewhere.

The situation for the Shelter Cove homeowners is regrettable. But how did the situation arise? Erosion is not recent at the site; it has been occurring since the 1930s! At the request of Shelter Cove's developer, the land was rezoned for residential uses in the 1980s, even though the Lane County Comprehensive Plan prohibits residential development of the area.

In 1990, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided it would not restore the jetty, which had slowed erosion at the site. The corps judged that the cost of restoration would outweigh its benefits because no existing structures were at risk. Only when riprap was already installed should homes be allowed. Nevertheless, Florence approved Shelter Cove in 1991.

Once the subdivision was approved, developers continued to build new homes on the cliff despite the fact that it was continuing to erode. The city did not begin to address the need for erosion control until 2004. The city finally redesignated the land to allow for erosion control in May of 2004. The city did not seek the required approval from Lane County until April of 2005 - nearly one year later. Lane County approved the application last February. Only at that point did Oregon Shores become involved.

Oregon Shores made an extremely difficult choice to proceed with an appeal to the Land Use Board of Appeals. On the one hand, the homeowners are in a difficult situation because of many missteps in the approval process for the development. On the other hand, there has been no attempt to address the cumulative impacts of riprap, the continuing destruction of the river's ecosystem and the increasing erosion at new places along the riverbank where so many people live, or will be living, as Florence grows.

Riprap has been installed at other places along the Siuslaw, moving erosion problems further along the river, and destroying habitats elsewhere. The National Marine Fisheries Service has written comments highlighting this problem, and the county admitted it was indeed a problem - but failed to address it in its decision allowing riprap at Shelter Cove.

What is the cumulative impact of the riprap? LUBA now requires Lane County to do cumulative impacts analysis, which will begin to look at the impacts of simply acting as we have in the past. If it is an honest analysis, the homeowners at Shelter Cove, and future homeowners, will only gain. There will be a template for intelligent decision-making in the future.

Oregon Shores decided to appeal in the hopes of getting a decision that would allow for as good a solution as possible in the Shelter Cove subdivision, but without harming other property. To protect all homeowners, current and future, as well as the river and its ecosystem, we must begin to do things differently than they have been done in the past. Oregon Shores hopes to work with the homeowners, Lane County and the city of Florence to ensure this happens.

Allison Asbjornsen of Tillamook County is the president of the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition.