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<br /> , , ,, v 41: One city's model solution
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<br /> to a wetlands dilemma a ,, r s }�` .
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<br /> BY SALLY -JO BOWMAN
<br /> S teve Gordon trudges through watery mud mean - bootsucking mud in winter. But it dries rock hard in sum -
<br /> dering through hummocks of grass at the west mer. We were slow to realize we had significant wet -
<br /> edge of Eugene, Oregon. Songbirds twitter in the lands."
<br /> leaves of native Oregon ash and a ring- necked The federal action, which meant that the West Eugene
<br /> pheasant honks. To the northwest, a freight train rumbles, area had to be protected, came while then - Governor Neil
<br /> and white smoke billows from a lumber mill. Beyond a Goldschmidt was in Japan marketing the land for indus-
<br /> field blooming blue with camas lilies, traffic hums on trial development. With the announcement, property
<br /> asphalt. owners feared their investment was suddenly worthless.
<br /> Gordon walks part of a 13,000 -acre remnant of west- City officials imagined potential jobs and tax money van -
<br /> ern Oregon prairie that covered perhaps 360,000 acres ishing. Tempers were on edge, to say the least.
<br /> when settlers arrived in the mid- 1800s. The settlers The city handed the mess to Gordon, a gentle man
<br /> turned most of the Willamette River Valley, of which this with a graying beard and a gift for listening. Over the next
<br /> prairie is part, into farmland. During the next 150 years, several years, he worked patiently with a wide variety of
<br /> the farmland gave way to industries, businesses and groups and individuals to engineer a plan that both pro -
<br /> homes in Eugene, which became Oregon's second- largest tects the environment and provides for economic devel-
<br /> urban area. •Thett in 1987, federal regulations gave the opment.
<br /> west fringe • the city a new identity: wetlands. The West Eugene wetlands plan, which The Nature
<br /> "That surprised a lot of people," says Gordon, a land- Conservancy helped craft, has won the support of corpo-
<br /> use planner for the Lane Council of Governments, a pub- rate leaders, government officials and conservationists. It
<br /> lic agency that provides planning services for the county. earned Gordon a 1992 National Wetlands Award, an
<br /> "We had the impression `wetlands' meant swamps and honor jointly sponsored by the Environmental Law
<br /> bogs. Everybody knew West Eugene was gooey with Institute and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
<br /> 10 NATURE CONSERVANCY - SEPTEMBER /OC1093 9 1993 .
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