Sean C. Morgan
Environmental cleanup costs on the former Willamette Industries Sweet Home Sawmill site will likely be in the thousands of dollars instead of millions.
Uncertainty over what the cleanup costs would be and how much time it would take were the reason given by the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training for not siting its new police and fire academy in Sweet Home.
Former Director Diane Middle, now retired, told The New Era in late 2001 that DPSST had to start construction by spring 2002 to be completed by a 2004 deadline.
“We never got past the environmental issues,” Middle said in 2001. “I don’t know how we get past it in a reasonable amount of time without expending millions of dollars.”
Instead of Sweet Home or Monmouth and Scappoose, a DPSST committee selected a site off Aumsville Highway in Salem where the agency initially met opposition to the project by neighbors.
Today, the site remains grasses and oak trees.
Under a 1997 law, DPSST is required to double training time for police officers to 16 weeks. It could not do that at the existing facility at Western Oregon University in Monmouth, so it began seeking a site, inviting rural communities to submit proposals.
Rep. Jeff Kropf, R-Sublimity, said that the project was stalled by the budget issues of the last two years. There has been some work done, including surveying.
Willamette Industries estimated cleanup costs at approximately $1.4 million. CH2M Hill, consulting for DPSST, estimated cleanup costs at $2-12 million.
In hopes of luring the project to Sweet Home, the city began looking for grant funding to clean up the property. A local committee also was exploring ways to add more “clean” land to the project to completely avoid environmental cleanup costs.
If DPSST had to pay cleanup costs on the Sweet Home site, the agency estimated the cost of construction at $4.8 million compared to an overall cost of $4.7 million for the Salem site.
The property is now operated by a nonprofit company, related to Development by Design. It currently is being used by Riverside Studs and New Vision lumber wholesaling. Revenues from the project are provided to nonprofit charity organizations.
Dan Desler, partner of Troy Cummins in Development by Design, said the cost of cleaning that property will be in the thousands not millions of dollars.
“I think we’re going to be the recipients of a $35,000 grant on a brownsfields cleanup,” Desler said. The funds will identify costs and solutions to environmental issues. A Eugene company will narrow the scope of options to move through the cleanup process.
“Right now, we’re very optimistic that it’s going to be minimal, thousands instead of millions,” Desler said. Willamette never did a detailed analysis at the site and developed its estimate based on a worst-case scenario.
With five years of records, the ponds on the site show no pollutants, Desler said. Other issues may be addressed simply, in one case just by paving over a contaminant that has not migrated into the water table or river.
Development by Design is in the design phase for a new golf course and is planning to build a full-scale resort, the Resort at Salmon Run, on more than 700 acres on the north side of Sweet Home.
At this point, Rep. Kropf does not think it would be feasible that the project could be shifted away from Salem.