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Team 1 Assignment | Individual Assignment 7
The first problem occurred when Spectra-Physics applied for a permit to fill twelve acres that were now designated wetlands. These acres were adjacent to twenty acres that the company had already filled in order to build the sites for its first building (1980) and its two-story plant that manufactures bar code scanners. Chuck Missar, who was a facility manager for the company at the time explains: "A city official called and said, 'Chuck, I need to talk to you.' That's always a bad-news phrase. He told me wetlands had been discovered on our property in an environmental assessment."
Missar continues: "'Wetlands??!!' I said. I had been a member of the Nature Conservancy for 25 years, and I thought I knew what wetlands were. You know, a tidal slough. But I was naive." The federal wetland regulators denied the permit, and the bad news didn't end there as you will see in the interview with Missar. He learned that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had decided the company had filled the first twenty acres without authorization.
Missar's company was bearing the brunt of changing times: "We had jumped through all the hoops. We weren't trying to slime anybody. It's just that nobody locally was aware of the federal land-use planning requirement. The process wasn't in place, and there were no local precedents."
The City of Eugene's city government took a partnership approach to the problem, and in 1987 hired the Lane Council of Governments (LCOG) to assist Spectra-Physics in obtaining a wetland permit for future expansion. The Lane Council of Governments and a multidepartmental city planning team, with Oregon Division of State Lands and US Environmental Protection Agency assistance, began to work with Spectra-Physics. However, success was not certain. In Eugene, the Spectra-Physics management began looking at the company's options: move to a new location in Eugene, move to a location without wetlands, perhaps in California near the company headquarters, fight a legal battle with the EPA, or keep pushing the permitting process.
Meanwhile, Chuck Missar and others in Eugene tried to learn more about wetlands in 1988. Esther Lev was hired to conduct a natural resources inventory within the Eugene-Springfield Urban Growth Boundary, a total of 75 square miles, for wetlands, riparian areas, waterways, and selected upland habitats. Preliminary inventory identifies 765 acres of wetlands in west Eugene. In April, she completed her study of historical wetlands in west Eugene using 1852-53 US Government Land Survey maps and field notes. Meanwhile, the Eugene City Council subcommittee on economic development pondered the merits of an individual permitting process versus a comprehensive wetlands management plan. (See Timeline if you want more detail on chronology.)
It was time for Spectra-Physics to explain its situation and let its headquarters in California know what would be best for the Eugene facility.
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