Source: City of Eugene and LCOG video tape
It Can Be Done:
A Model Approach to Solving Wetlands Problems
Video Clip 1:
Narrator: Congress began a new era in environmental protection with the passage of the Federal Clean Water Act. One provision of the act aggressively seeks to protect America's threatened Wetlands through a strict permitting process. This provision, however, is creating tension among a broad spectrum of stakeholders in wetlands issues. Property owners and developers are concerned about property rights and the perceived threat to their investments. Environmental groups and regulatory agencies are seeking to preserve threatened resources. Cities and towns across the country want to protect long-term urban planning investments, which are suddenly at odds with federal law.The Environmental Protection Agency has funded a program in Eugene, Oregon to serve as a model to help municipalities deal with the tension that arises when development and Wetlands preservation are in conflict. A view of the process that turns Eugene's urban planning nightmare into a workable solution is the topic of this presentation.
Video Clip 2: How Wetlands Were Discovered
in West Eugene
Narrator: There is a joke that says people in Eugene, Oregon don't
tan; they rust. Eugene is located in the Willamette Valley, on the western
side of the Cascade Mountains. For decades, Eugene city planners have directed
urban expansion westward towards Fern Ridge Reservoir. During this period,
the city invested some twenty million dollars in roads, storm water facilities,
and sanitary sewers to support planned West Eugene expansion. Then, in 1987,
as part of a Natural Resources Inventory Update, a biologist identified
765 acres of Wetlands in this urban expansion zone. On this map, the Wetlands
are represented in yellow. 
Neil Bjorklund, Eugene City Planner: After our
original Wetland inventory, the federal government came out with a new Wetland
delineation, now applied in the field, the acreage of Wetlands in West Eugene
increased dramatically. It was a problem for us, because, as planners, we
weren't trained to deal with both legal and scientific intricacies of wetlands
and wetland laws. Spectra-Physics was the first major example of the kind
of problems that you can have in wetlands protection and development. 
Chuck Missar, Facilities Manager, Spectra-Physics:
Spectra-Physics makes very sophisticated bar code scanning devices. Over
the last decade, we provided hundreds of professional-level jobs in the
Eugene area economy. In the late 1980s, we discovered that we had a wetland
problem, and we didn't understand what that really meant. We spent another
year trying to fill out all the paper work necessary to get the proper permits
to develop the last phase of our property. We spent a year and a half creating
a restored wetland. That process is done now, but we have to maintain it
for several years. It has been a very complicated, time-consuming, and expensive
process. Narrator: The problems facing Spectra-Physics had developers and land-owners reeling. Many projects worth millions of dollars were now suddenly in question, but Eugene's active environmental community saw the wetlands issue from a vastly different perspective.
Art Farley, Friends of Eugene Springfield Habitats: While newly discovered by the city, these areas have been known by wildlife enthusiasts for many years. For future industrial developments, there was a significant threat that these resources would be lost. We were very happy that finally there was a formal recognition of these areas, which then motivated local governments to find a plan to sustain these resources in accordance with the national policy and laws about wetlands.
Narrator: From the city's point of view, the situation was grave. If each property owner had to brave a potentially long, uncertain and expensive wetlands permitting process, development could slow or even halt completely. Without reasonable development in West Eugene, much of the city's twenty million dollar infrastructure investment would be lost. Still more costs would be incurred, as systems services would have to be extended elsewhere to allow for growth. On the other hand, continued development would lead to further loss and fragmentation of wetlands.
Shawn Boles, Eugene City Councilman: We in Eugene, as in many other communities, have found that what appeared to be a conflict between wetlands and development actually was an opportunity that benefited both the natural environment and the business environment. First, to protect our investment, we looked upon a new perspective that says what is good for the environment is good for business environment. It turns out that that's true.
Narrator: After assessing the situation, the Eugene city council concluded the property owners and developers needed help in finding a solution to their wetlands difficulties. That help was to come in the form of a wetlands plan. The council agreed that four objectives should guide the development of the plan. First, to find a balance between protection and development that meets the state and federal law. Second, to compile solid information and to make that information available to the community. Third, to get all interested segments of the community opportunities to affect the plan. And finally, to turn the foreseen wetlands problem into an opportunity. With these instructions, the wheels began to spin.
A fifty thousand dollar grant from the Environmental Protection Agency funded the mapping and evaluation of wetlands in West Eugene. A technical advisory committee of state and federal agency representatives was assembled to advise the process. An interdepartmental and interagency team of planners, engineers, and ecologists, dubbed the "Wetheads," formed and took responsibility for developing the wetlands plan at the local level. The Lane Council of Governments, the regional planning agency, was hired to manage the project. This coordinated, broad-based group gathered data about the many aspects of Eugene's wetlands opportunity. Researchers compiled information on wetlands boundaries, soils, hydrology, restoration potential, floodways, land use, rare plants and animals, and numerous related topics.
You've got to be very careful
if you don't know where you're going--
because you might not get there.
Yogi Berra
Narrator: The Eugene city council directed that the wetlands plan be developed with a high degree of public participation. To this end, an elaborate public outreach program was launched. The effort included informal workshops, public hearings, display materials, and field trips, as well as mail-ins, surveys, a speaker's bureau, and news releases.
Steve Gordon, Lane Council
of Governments: I had the wonderful opportunity to be project manager
of the West Eugene plan, to take what was a perceived problem in this community,
study the science of wetlands, and then, even more magically, bring the
competing parties--environmentalists, the development community, the property
owners--together to find a common solution. The citizen involvement plan
that we went through and the workshops were electrifying. There were moments
when you almost had goose bumps, when you saw that we had gotten past the
anger and people wanted to solve the problem. An absolutely fantastic process,
because it involved people all the way through it. One of the keys to making
it work was the multiple objective approach--finding something that the
bicyclists could endorse, the development community could endorse, the environmental
community could endorse . . . . We made it happen. It was magical when it
happened.Narrator: Multiple objective planning involves bringing together different interests in order to create win-win solutions to common problems. In the case of Eugene's wetlands, it included such wide-ranging objectives as protecting the environment, enhancing development, improving public works infrastructure, supporting community values, and promoting intergovernmental partnerships. Through the process of multiple objective planning, each of these areas received major benefits.
Art Farley: The wetlands plan strikes a balance by allowing some of the lesser wetlands to be developed, yet takes money from that and creates a litigation bank whereby we will acquire connecting lands, thereby reaching the most important wetlands, interconnecting them so that they function even better in the future, providing better water quality and connecting the wildlife corridors.
Chuck Missar, Spectra-Physics: Business hates uncertainty. We have enough uncertainty in our normal day-to-day business operations. We had to go through the permit process alone. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. I think that a formal plan, where people can buy into pre-done wetlands and mitigation banks and other opportunities like that is a tremendous way to go and will save everybody money and aggravation and time in the long-run.
Chris Anderson, Eugene Public Works Director: Multiple objectives planning in the West Eugene area is particularly important, because we have a number of program areas, all involved in the same geographic area. We're concerned about flood control, stormwater conveyance, water quality issues. In order to be able to meet all those goals and meet them in a cost-effective way, there's only one way to plan for that, and that's with a comprehensive consideration of all the goals in a comprehensive manner.
Bobby Green, Eugene City Council: Having over one thousand acres of open greenway space adjacent to an urban area is really good. Recreational activities, education, and future environmental jobs are direct community benefits.
Bonnie Coogan, Assistant District Manager of Bureau of Land Management: I think it's extremely advantageous to have a partnership relationship--The Bureau of Land Management, the state of Oregon, the City of Eugene, Lane County, and non-profit organizations like the Nature Conservancy--because, to me, that assures that the best means of implementing the plan, and it assures success of the ecosystem on the wetlands, because we will pool our human resources and skills and pull our dollars to do the best job possible out there.
Narrator: With an open public process targeting multiple objective planning goals, the problem of wetlands has indeed turned into a wetlands opportunity.
Tom Yocum, EPA Region IX: The permitting process, by its very nature, is case-by-case. It only looks at a single parcel at a time. That does not lead to useful results, whereas a permitting process placed within the context of a watershed plan allows you to consider all of the wetlands and all of the functions and values of that system, in deciding how to allow or what to allow in the permitting process.
Narrator: The West Eugene Wetlands Plan also makes sense economically, according to private environmental consultant, Philip Williams.
Philip Williams: When we look at a project just as an ecological enhancement project, it is very worthwhile to do, but it can be expensive if people object to spending a lot of money just on restoring or repairing a wetland, for example. But when you start factoring in the other benefits, the water improvement and production of floodpeaks, you see it can actually make sense economically.
Narrator: In total, the wetlands plan development costs were a little less than four hundred thousand dollars over a five-year period. Already, the plan has helped garner almost three million dollars in federal funds to buy wetlands. And additional one million dollars has been acquired for bicycle path construction and stream restoration. These figures do not account, however, for other highly significant improvements that cannot be tallied in ledger books.
Ruth Bascom, Mayor of Eugene: Through the wetlands program, we addressed the quality of our water, the need to protect wildlife habitat, and a predictable site for job creation. Dedicated people--local, state, federal--worked together to insure a future with jobs, natural habitat, and clean water. With Eugene's wetlands program, we are keeping our eye on the future.
Jon Kusler, Executive Director, Association of State Wetlands Managers:
Looking at other communities around the country in the next five years, it is going to be something that, we believe, hundreds of communities are going to get involved in. They all are trying to do floodbank management and stormwater management and clean and unclean source pollution controls--water supply, and they also are attempting to deal with some of the natural systems values and so forth. And the only way you can do it is by beginning to somehow look at water as the common resource and the quantity and the quality of that water. That's what the Eugene plan is about. It's not simply about wetlands.
Narrator: Is your community affected by the wetlands provision of the Clean Water Act? Would a process similar to the one used in Eugene benefit your area? If so, a fuller description of Eugene's experience in turning a wetlands problem into a wetlands opportunity is available in the West Eugene Wetlands Plan. The plan and various related publications are available from the Lane Council of Governments and the city of Eugene.
