BLM's wetlands `park' may block Eugene parkway.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

A remote marsh that's transformed into a popular park in recent years could become an immovable roadblock to the long-fought West Eugene Parkway.

Construction of the highway through wetlands in west Eugene was to begin next summer, but the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which has developed the marsh into a place for hiking, bicycling and nature watching, has raised serious objections to the road-building plan.

BLM officials say that the increasing numbers of people using its land in the West Eugene Wetlands for recreation signals a substantial change from 1997, when highway officials last analyzed the impacts of the proposed five-lane highway.

"Their last study was in 1997," the BLM's state director, Elaine Brong, said Thursday. "It did not consider the additional lands that were acquired since that time; the bicycle path that has been built since that time; and all the reclamation that's occurred in the wetlands."

The evolution of the wetlands into a parklike setting may mean that the Federal Highway Administration and the state Department of Transportation will have to clear far higher legal hurdles before BLM officials will relinquish a right-of-way for the road.

Under federal highway law, in order to pave over parkland, highway officials have to prove there's no "feasible and prudent" alternative route that would "best serve the needs of the traveling public while preserving the natural beauty of these areas."

The looming showdown is an example of how separate agencies can pursue their agendas over many years without reconciling their competing aims.

Even as highway officials were spending $10 million planning the parkway, BLM officials were plowing $20 million-plus into restoring wetlands and creating wildlife refuges and recreation areas in the highway's path.

Each side knew what the other was doing. This spring, highway contractors staking out wetlands that would fall under the bulldozer's blade crossed paths with BLM employees preparing the ground for restoration of wildflowers.

The conflict is the latest twist in the embattled 25-year effort to build a highway across west Eugene, and it could mean an excruciating death by delay for the road project.

If the road builders don't satisfy the BLM that they've done a thorough analysis, the bureau could insist on performing its own environmental studies, which could take years to complete. And even after that, the bureau might conclude that the damage would be too great and refuse to grant the deed.

So the BLM, which insists that it's neutral on the ultimate question of whether the parkway should be built, is asking highway officials to re-examine whether the parkway's current configuration is optimal.

Julia Dougan, district manager for the BLM, wrote the July letter as a critique of the highway department's latest environmental plans for the roadway.

Dougan contended that the road builders must take into account the park-like uses that have recently blossomed in the wetlands area - hiking, bicycling, bird-watching - and seriously consider a new route that wouldn't disrupt them.

Dougan questioned "whether the proposed route remains the most feasible alternative for meeting the purpose and need for the parkway."

The next step, expected this week, is for the Federal Highway Administration to decide whether it's necessary to pursue a new, lengthy analysis to resolve the differences between parkway and park. "I think we can satisfy a lot of their concerns," said David Cox, division administrator for the Federal Highway Administration.

If any compromise is possible - for example, a rerouting of the highway around wetlands - it's not clear at this stage what that would look like.

Park-like grounds

The West Eugene Wetlands is a 3,000-acre patchwork of land that's been bought with public and private dollars over the past decade and reserved for wetlands, wildlife and recreation. The lands are the largest protected open space in Eugene, promoters say.

The area includes a dozen enticements for public use, including lookouts, interpretive signs, hikes and a 2.5-mile bike path that meanders through, drawing 100 visitors a day, the BLM estimates.

A thousand school kids a year go to the wetlands to study ecology and botany, and wetland managers envision a $12 million environmental education complex. The Eugene School District has promised a half-million dollars for that.

Visitors eat lunch on benches or at picnic tables. Hikers skirt the Bertelsen Slough and sometimes flush a great blue heron from the waterway.

Wetland guides invite them to Meadowlark Prairie - named for the state bird - where an interpretive sign encourages: "300 species of birds use the West Eugene Wetlands. How many different types of bird songs can you hear?"

But if the noisy 55-mph parkway were ever built, it would run alongside that same wet prairie.

Putting a highway right next to a wetlands recreation area is "stupid," said 43-year-old Joe Renaud, who bikes through the area at least once a week. "It will make it much less pleasant, and it will make it less pleasant for the heron, and that's the shame of it."

A balancing act?

The intent of the 14-year-old West Eugene Wetlands plan was to overcome persistent fights between developers and conservationists.

A partnership of state, local and federal agencies was established as a model for how government agencies - working together - could preserve the best lands and set aside other acres for urban development.

"It was always the balancing between development and conservation that was the important element. That's why it's a model around the country - not because it preserves everything, but because it tries to strike a balance," said Jim Carlson, Eugene assistant city manager.

Eugene, Lane County and the BLM, now the major wetlands owners, adopted the plan.

In 1992, when Eugene planners drew up the founding document, they barred new road building through the area - with the exception of the proposed West Eugene Parkway, which was grandfathered in.

But the parkway was little more than a line on a map in succeeding iterations of the West Eugene Wetlands plan. The plan was silent on how to muffle road noise and prevent it from disrupting people's experiences of the wetlands.

BLM spokesman Doug Huntington said the parkway was on and off the table so many times - stalled, panned and praised - that the wetland partnership didn't know how to account for it.

And state and federal highway officials never joined the wetlands management group that's called the shots in the wetlands for more than a decade.

Now, parkway proponents are reaching for ways to describe how the road and the parkland could be compatible. Cox, the federal highways official, said the most people will enjoy their view of the wetlands through a windshield as they drive by.

"We'll be giving thousands of people a day a better look at the wetlands," he said. "Right now, it's hard to see them at all when you go by; maybe (with the new parkway) you'll see just enough to make you want to come back and walk a path."

Sorting it out

The road builders and the park builders each maintain that the other shouldn't be surprised by the ongoing collision of aims.

The parkway was drawn into the region's planning documents for decades, state Department of Transportation officials note.

"We always knew the road was going to be there. We weren't expecting to put mufflers all around the cars," said Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey, a major parkway supporter.

But BLM officials say they've repeatedly raised their concerns about impact on the recreational uses in the two years since the highway department firmed up plans to cross the agency's lands.

Huntington said that highway officials brushed aside BLM's concerns. Now, Cox, the federal highway official, concedes that road builders will have to address the BLM's questions.

"We need their help - and they know it," he said.