Bethel resident: Sports complex, distribution center compound environmental harm

Presenter: Public comments  asked Eugene to consider the cumulative effects for Bethel from a sports complex and an Amazon distribution facility. At the Sustainability Commission Feb. 18, Karen Hall:

Karen Hall: My name is Karen Hall. I’m a resident of the Bethel area. I’m also an environmental conservation professional with a PhD in plant physiology and two decades of work in habitat and environmental education in Oregon, Texas, and North and South Carolina. So I’ve been around a little bit. 

I wanted to raise something that I think is missing from the triple bottom line analysis presented tonight, and that’s the project was never (that I can see) evaluated against Eugene’s own Climate Action Plan.

The CAP’s biggest challenge is transportation emissions—over 52% of Eugene’s total—and the city is currently 39% short of the 2030 fossil fuel reduction goal.

The TBL (triple bottom line) itself documents the artificial turf fields will generate nearly three times the annual vehicle trips of natural grass: roughly 265,000 cars per year versus 93,000. 

That’s celebrated in the report as an economic benefit. But it’s also significant transportation emissions liability, and it wasn’t reconciled with a CAP.

I’d ask this committee to formally recommend that analysis before construction is actually approved (and maybe that you’ve already done that, I’m not aware).

The second issue is cumulative air quality burden in the Bethel neighborhood. West Eugene already accounts for about 96% of toxic emissions in the city. That’s a well-documented environmental justice concern.

The Amazon distribution facility is now confirmed for the Highway 99 corridor, and it will add 2,600 field vehicle trips per day for the air shed, even though they’re slated to start electric cars by 2030 is my memory. Adding a major sports complex on top of that in the same neighborhood without a cumulative quality analysis is not a small decision.

And the two projects together represent compounding environmental harm to a community that already bears a disproportionate share of harm.

I’m not asking the Commission to stop the park. I’m asking for two things:

1. A formal CAP alignment review for Phase 1 funding
2. A cumulative air quality analysis that accounts for the Amazon facility alongside sports complex traffic.

Because I think Bethel deserves this rigor. Thank you.

Presenter: She says it’s a matter of environmental justice. Bethel resident Karen Hall asks the city to review the cumulative environmental harms from the sports complex and the Amazon distribution center. 

Karen Hall is a co-lead of the Golden Gardens friends group, GGHabitat Guardians.