In a last-ditch effort to stop construction of the massive parcel-distribution center on Hwy 99 in Eugene, opponents are contesting the developer’s plan to pave over nearly seven acres of wetlands.

The critics have previously made their case to the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency, the Eugene City Council and the Eugene Planning Commission. Each time, they’ve hit a brick wall: Officialdom can’t or doesn’t want to stop the project, which is presumed to be for Amazon.

Now, they’re pleading with the Oregon Department of State Lands and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, whose approval is needed for the wetlands filling.

The public has until Jan. 2 to comment on the fill plan. Opponents are making use of the time.

More than 60 residents from across Lane County and beyond have filed comments lauding the wetlands and decrying Amazon.

“Eugene residents do not want to lose more wetlands and we do not want a giant warehouse built on our wetlands,” writes Eugene resident Kristi Schneider in a typical comment.

“The project will adversely impact state and/or federally listed species: namely, homo sapiens (humans),” writes Eugene resident Ellen Brenner. “It will generate huge amounts of traffic for which there is nowhere near enough road capacity to handle. It will have a massive negative impact on that whole area of town. West Eugene already has major pollution from past industry — why do we need to inflict even more?”

Making the case

The 89-page application by consultant T.C. Pursuit Services of Portland lays out the argument for the filling: The 320,000-square-foot building is allowed under the city’s zoning code; the consultant has found no better-suited sites; and the developer would pay into the city of Eugene’s wetlands mitigation bank to create a compensating amount of wetlands elsewhere in west Eugene.

The 85-acre warehouse site on Hwy 99 near the Eugene Airport is owned by out-of-area investors. Amazon won’t confirm or deny it is behind the project. But plans show a warehouse similar to other Amazon distribution centers. The anonymous developer’s plans show the place would receive trailer loads of packages that would be sorted and then delivered to homes and businesses in the Lane County area by a fleet of many hundreds of vans. Amazon packages are already distributed locally under Amazon contracts with carriers such as the U.S. Postal Service. But nationwide, Amazon wants to ditch those contracts and perform its own deliveries, news reports say.

The application touts the economic value of the warehouse. Critics scoff at that.

“The proposed development will not only result in increased tax revenue, but it will also provide additional job opportunities for residents of the City of Eugene, and those looking to move to the area,” the application states. That boosterish narrative is misleading, critics say. The warehouse jobs will mostly be lower-pay van-driving positions, they say. 

Even Greg Evans, a Eugene city councilor who favors the warehouse, says the place will offer entry-level jobs for recent high-school graduates. That’s not the vision the Eugene City Council had in 2017-18 when it zoned hundreds of acres of farmland around the Eugene Airport — including the site now picked for the warehouse — for industrial development to grow the city’s economy. The land should attract high-tech factories and manufacturing headquarters that have high-paying jobs, elected leaders and city planning staff said at the time.

The land is intended for “developers looking to invest in manufacturing in western Oregon,” says a recent city publication. But the zoning rules passed by the council also allow standalone warehouse and delivery-van operations like the one now being proposed. Critics have recently urged the council to shut that loophole, but councilors have not acted on that.

Other sites

In its application, T.C. Pursuit Services says it evaluated seven other industrial sites in the Eugene-Springfield area, mostly in west Eugene. All were either too small, had wetlands or were otherwise unsuitable, the consultant says. The rejected sites included the largely vacant former Hynix computer chip plant in west Eugene, the consultant says.

To fit the warehouse and parking onto the Highway 99 property, the developer must fill nearly seven acres of wetlands, the application says. That’s more than five football fields.

For decades, the typical approach nationwide under the federal Clean Water Act has been to allow wetlands filling if it’s necessary and if an equivalent amount and quality of new wetlands is created relatively nearby.

Wetlands are valuable for absorbing stormwater, replenishing aquifers and providing bird, mammal and aquatic habitat.

At the Hwy 99 site “the quality of the wetlands is low to moderate (though some functions rate as high), as the wetlands within the project area and adjoining lands have been subject to decades of agricultural activities,” the consultant’s application says.

“These wetlands may provide some seasonal habitat for small mammals and birds,” but they are “dominated by a near monoculture of non-native grasses,” the application says.

The replacement wetlands that would be created elsewhere in west Eugene would likely “out perform” the Hwy 99 wetlands, the application says.

Critics don’t buy it.

Among them is Nicole Handel of Veneta.

“As an environmental engineer, I have studied the impacts of wetland destruction. Building a few new wetlands in their place is not a solution. Wetlands are home to thousands of vital keystone species in Lane County and the Long Tom watershed. Once gone, that natural population will not be recoverable. Constructing a huge industry building… is a terrible idea for water quality and habitat conservation.… Please protect the people and nature, not corporate greed,” she writes in comments on the application.

The Department of State Lands is reviewing the application through early March 2026.

To find the application and all comments, visit Lands.dsl.state.or.us, click on “check permit and authorization status,” then click on Lane County on the map, and then click on the T.C. Pursuit Services document.

Bricks $ Mortar is a column anchored by Christian Wihtol, who worked as an editor and writer at The Register-Guard in Eugene 1990-2018, much of the time focused on real estate, economic development and business. Reach him at Christian@EugeneWeekly.com.