Measure 37 puts Newberry Crater at risk.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Douglas Larson For The Register-Guard

When Oregonians approved Measure 37 in 2004, few realized that their passion for `property fairness' could threaten some of the state's most treasured natural wonders - including the Newberry National Volcanic Monument, located about 30 miles south of Bend.

Measure 37 requires that governments compensate private landowners for lost property values resulting from `enactment or enforcement of land-use regulation.' Now, with the Newberry Crater legally targeted for industrial and commercial development, Oregonians may be asking themselves why they didn't question the measure's potentially sinister, far-reaching consequences.

For opponents, Newberry Crater would have been the perfect poster child to depict what Oregon could lose if Measure 37 became law. The 90-square-mile monument, with the crater as its centerpiece, was created by Congress in 1990 to `preserve for present and future generations the unique geologic landforms and many other resources.'

Lewis McArthur, in his book "Oregon Geographic Names," remarked of Newberry Crater that, `Nature narrowly missed giving Oregon two crater lakes almost equal in size and beauty, but like many other attempts to improve upon a masterpiece, this one failed.'

What actually failed was a portion of the Newberry Crater wall, allowing water to escape. Otherwise, McArthur claimed, the water level inside the crater would have been much higher, and `the surroundings would have more nearly resembled Crater Lake itself.'

Newberry Crater, like Oregon's world-renowned Crater Lake, is actually a caldera, but one in which two lakes are situated rather than one. These, East and Paulina, began as one lake that was divided in two by cinder cones and lava flows from secondary vents inside the caldera. The caldera's highest point is Paulina Peak, a jagged remnant of the caldera rim that rises sharply above Paulina Lake to an elevation of nearly 8,000 feet.

East and Paulina are among the deepest natural lakes in Oregon, with maximum depths of 180 and 250 feet, respectively. East Lake is essentially a closed basin, meaning that no permanent streams enter or exit. Paulina Lake has an outlet (Paulina Creek) that flows westward, cascading over streambed cliffs up to 80 feet in height before entering the north-flowing Little Deschutes River.

Yet, despite its national monument status, Newberry Crater may soon feature more than its unique geologic landforms, rare lakes and priceless plant and animal communities. Indeed, future visitors may also behold a geothermal power plant, an open-pit mine containing an estimated 8.5 million cubic yards of high-quality pumice, and a hundred upscale vacation homes equipped with septic tanks and drainfields.

All this would be on 157 acres of private property alongside East Lake. The property's owner, James Miller of Portland and associated partners, acquired the land in 1969 through an unrecorded lease and option agreement. Frustrated by land-use restrictions imposed by Deschutes County, the owner recently filed a Measure 37 claim demanding that the county allow him to develop these facilities or pay him roughly $203 million in compensation for lost property value.

Unquestionably, the construction and operation of these facilities poses considerable risk to the entire Newberry Crater environment. This is particularly true for the lakes, which have already deteriorated over the years due to ever-increasing human encroachment and use. The caldera's status as a national monument may be correcting or stabilizing this ominous trend by making visitors aware of the monument's fragile terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and by better regulating recreational activities and other uses. But improvements will be nullified by industrial developments and a hundred-plus homes that discharge their sewage and other wastes into highly permeable volcanic soils and rock that drain toward the lakes.

Deschutes County has until December 2006 to decide the outcome. Unfortunately, because the land is private, the federal government has no jurisdiction in the matter. Given that the county's total annual budget for 2006-07 is $253 million, it's likely that development will proceed. If so, the plumes of dust and debris arising someday from the crater may not be volcanic in origin, but rather the aerial effluent from industrial and commercial exploitation.

Douglas Larson, a limnologist and an adjunct professor at Portland State University, first studied East and Paulina lakes during the 1960s as a graduate student at Oregon State University. He returned to the lakes this summer to repeat some of his first water-optic measurements taken nearly 40 years ago.