Walk to make a park - see the City's parkway properties

meet at Fifth and Wallis Streets

On Sunday June 25, at noon, after the grass seed allergy season is over, WETLANDS will sponsor another walk in Bertelsen Nature Park to explore the WEP wrong-of-way. This walk will focus on the Amazon Creek tributary that would suffer maximum impact, and will visit the City of Eugene owned parcel that could become the Bailey Hill / WEP intersection (it is currently a grove of cottonwood trees). If Mayor Piercy really wanted to stop the WEP, the City of Eugene would transfer the two City owned properties in the path to the BLM's West Eugene Wetlands project for restoration and conservation. Transferring these properties would not be symbolic -- it would have legal teeth that would make WEP even more illegal. A map of who owns what in the West Eugene Wetlands is at http://www.permatopia.com/wetlands/lwcf.html

Section 4(f) of the 1966 Transportation Act prohibits federal funding for transportation projects through parks if there is a prudent and feasible alternative. If the City converted its WEP parcels into parks, that would make approving the WEP virtually impossible, and provide more impetus to look at the alternatives to the project. If you agree with this goal, please contact Mayor Kitty Piercy to urge her to expand our parkland to prevent the parkway.

On May 4, Mary O'Brien and Rob Handy are giving a presentation about the WEP and critical habitats in the West Eugene wetlands (at the EWEB meeting room). Unfortunately, the WETLANDS alternative -- which is critical for helping gain protection for these critical habitats -- is not allowed to be included in that program.

Exclusionary policies are rarely effective at creating community cohesion, and the desire for "turf" is one of the reasons why the environmental movement is not as effective as it needs to be.