New boat landing site considered.

Byline: Jeff Wright The Register-Guard

The Eugene Water & Electric Board thinks it's found a new preferred site for a boat landing on Leaburg Lake - at the same locale where community opposition swamped plans by Lane County to build a boat landing six years ago.

EWEB officials didn't even consider the site - just downstream from the Goodpasture Covered Bridge - until river guide Ken Helfrich urged them to do so at an EWEB meeting up the McKenzie Valley in June.

Before then, EWEB had been focusing on two other sites - expanding the existing Ike's Landing on Leaburg Lake, or building a new boat landing at Indian Creek upriver from the Goodpasture bridge. A fourth site, next to the Old Leaburg Fish Hatchery, also has been suggested.

Early analysis suggests the so-called Goodpasture site beneath the bridge is the best option, with fewer traffic and environmental complications, EWEB spokesman Marty Douglass said.

"Every site has its ups and downs, but the Goodpasture site appears to be the best in terms of constructability," Douglass said. "But we also know we can probably anticipate a spirited discussion about that site in the community - more so than any of the other sites."

Many McKenzie River neighbors, including owners of riverfront property directly across the river from the Goodpasture site, vehemently opposed plans by Lane County to build a boat landing at that spot in 2000. The project eventually fizzled despite a 3-2 county commissioners' vote in favor of the proposal.

Bob Grafton, one of the neighbors who opposed the boat landing site then, said it's too early to say how he and other residents might respond to EWEB's proposal.

"Me and my neighbors are withholding judgment until we see all the alternatives on the table," he said. "I believe there is support up here for a boat landing - the amount of support for a specific site is going to depend on design, safety and other characteristics."

EWEB is awaiting a report from OBEC Consulting Engineers that will assess the four sites more closely, and then wants to set another meeting with upriver residents to go over the findings, Douglass said. That meeting will most likely be held late this month or in early September, he said.

The Goodpasture site emerged as a front-runner after EWEB staff met with state Department of Transportation and county Land Management Division officials to review the Ike's Landing and Indian Creek sites, Douglass said.

Both sites present traffic safety concerns, and Ike's Landing would require a permit to put fill into the lake on which to construct a new landing, Douglass said. A boat landing at Indian Creek, meanwhile, would cut into the site's limited riverbank property, and would result in the loss of riparian vegetation, he said.

EWEB committed to building a new boat landing somewhere near Leaburg Lake as a condition of receiving a new operating license for the Leaburg/Walterville hydroelectric project from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The new landing is intended to mitigate raising the level of Leaburg Lake to divert more water into EWEB's power canal at Leaburg Dam. EWEB earlier asked permission to have the boat landing requirement removed, after concluding it needed to raise the lake only 6 inches instead of 18 inches as originally proposed.

Utility officials have since said they want to keep their commitment to build a boat landing, which they estimate could cost between $500,000 and $1 million.

Helfrich said he is pleased, and a little surprised, that EWEB may be coming around to the idea that the Goodpasture site is best. He said river users have long considered the locale, along a straight portion of Highway 126 and near the top of Leaburg Lake, to be a superior site that was torpedoed seven years ago for strictly political reasons.

Helfrich said he also is encouraged that nearby residents might take a more conciliatory approach this time around.

"I'd like to see this as something that brings the community together instead of pulling us apart," he said. "I'm not trying to create enemies with this."