Dear CHOICES members and subscribers,
Just a quick update! We'll have the full week's news on Sunday.
First, last (Thursday) night, the Springfield Planning Commission recommended approval of the plan amendments request by PeaceHealth -- with the suggestion that those plans be tightened up to really plan for a hospital and not, say, a shopping center should PeaceHealth's plans change:
Second, David Rodriguez, who lives just upstream from where the Mathews' house once stood, and has been involved with river-related issues since the mid-1990s, paints a vivid picture of what siting a hospital next to a river might mean.
For CHOICES,
Rob Zako
rzako@efn.org
343-5201
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/12/10/d3.cr.sp.plancomm.1210.html
December 10, 2004
Planning commission OKs rule changes for hospital
By Bob Keefer
The Register-Guard
SPRINGFIELD - After deliberating for two and a half hours, the planning commission voted 5-1 Thursday to endorse a series of land-use rule changes to allow PeaceHealth to build a regional medical center in the Gateway area.
The commission had heard public testimony on the proposal in a joint meeting with the City Council last month.
The matter goes to the City Council for expected final approval on Jan. 10, along with a second recommendation from the commission that the public be allowed to testify about the project once again.
In endorsing the proposed revisions, the Planning Commission also sought to ensure that the land owned by PeaceHealth, next to the McKenzie River and dubbed RiverBend, could not be used for any other large commercial project should the medical center not be built.
"The major thing I think I can effect - and it's not what I had hoped to accomplish here - is to make sure the land is used for its stated use," Commissioner Greg Shaver said.
Shaver wondered aloud whether the land-use revisions the commission was considering would - should the medical center not be built - allow pizza parlors and car washes to be built on the now largely undeveloped rural site. He finally voted with the commission majority, though, despite his reservations about the project.
Commissioner William Carpenter voted against the rule changes. He questioned whether they protect the community from traffic congestion caused by the new medical center.
Carpenter particularly pointed to the lack of firm funding for improving the Interstate 5/Belt Line interchange, a project that would be necessary to minimize congestion in the area of the medical center, which is expected to open in 2008.
Under a Court of Appeals decision last spring, the hospital is required to ease traffic congestion as the medical center is built, rather than waiting for problems to occur and then fixing them. "What happens if all of a sudden we figure out the road's not going to be built by 2008?" he said.
City attorney Megan Kieran said the city could, in that case, refuse to allow the hospital to open.
The commission voted unanimously to ask the City Council to accept "argument" from the public at its Jan. 10 meeting. That would mean members of the public could discuss information already in the hearing record but could not introduce new information.
http://www.springfieldnews.com/articles/2004/12/10/opinion/opinion05.txt
December 10, 2004
And as the hospital sank into the McKenzie River...
By David Rodriguez
Opinion in The Springfield News
It's a pre-dawn morning during the winter of 2008. It has been raining heavily for a week straight. All the dams are filled to capacity. The McKenzie and Willamette rivers are flowing over their banks. At the new Sacred Heart Hospital along the McKenzie River, rising floodwaters have cut off vehicle access.
As in 1996, residents throughout Lane County are waking to find they are stranded and in need of help. Many have been injured and some are missing. Unfortunately, most regional rescue efforts must remain focused on hospital evacuation. Over two feet of water surrounds the hospital, and the rescue is hazardous.
What officials also don't fully realize is that the main river channel has changed course. It has cut across the neck of the oxbow-shaped bend in the river just upstream from Sacred Heart and is now forcing the current directly toward the hospital and the dozens of medical buildings. It has completely undermined the riprap bank. Within a few hours, it begins cutting right under the main wing.
Two rescuers are swept away in their vehicle after being caught off guard. Nobody can do anything to stop the erosion because water is everywhere, and dump trucks can't get through the mud. And the news stations are airing reports that the new McKenzie Willamette Hospital at the EWEB site is also facing rising floodwaters.
The community has completely lost access to one of its hospitals and the other may be facing a similar fate. The entire first floor annex and Oregon Medical Laboratories offices at the old Sony plant are also flooded. Most of Sacred Heart's adjacent buildings, housing and nearby commercial outlets also are suffering major damage. Several buildings have been destroyed.
Moreover, due to the displaced floodwaters from all these buildings, every nearby residence suffers extensive flood damage. Homes are inundated and victims are trapped on roofs. More deaths around Lane County occur because of the strain on rescue personnel, who remain tied up with hospital evacuation.
A few days later, after the waters recede, the community begins to assess the damage. Inevitably, they ask who is to blame. Thirteen people died, with most of those deaths directly attributed to the hospitals being flooded and there being no remaining rescue capability. Eleven acres of land and buildings are gone as the raging river has scoured a new channel. Losses total nearly $1 billion, and most of the new Sacred Heart facility must be demolished because the foundation was undermined. The county district attorney soon weighs charges against those who did not stop hospital plans when they knew the risk.
Any part of this scenario is possible and plausible! Something went wrong in the planning process for the new hospital at RiverBend. Planners knew most of the RiverBend site is really in a flood plain, and that the flood plain maps are wrong -- the 1996 flood proved this. Former Sony spokeswoman Monica Shovlin said in The Springfield News on Feb. 10, 1996: "The river flowed through the factory's cafeteria Wednesday night."
Yet they plow forward, with their so-called experts to counter serious issues raised in the planning process. They can strengthen the riprap bank before construction. They can elevate the roadways and the hospital itself, and build a dike to protect it from rising floodwaters. But a hospital threatened by flood will still command use of every available resource and all rescue personnel, taking away from other countywide needs. And just where does this giant flood-protected hospital force all the displaced floodwaters? To the upstream, downstream, and adjacent properties.
Their experts cast aside crucial issues in assessing flood risk. Now they know that if and when the river does change course -- which it will someday -- they will be held accountable.
Rule No. 1: Communities don't build ANY emergency services (or museums) -- and especially hospitals -- in areas prone to flooding!
The Sacred Heart Hospital is being planned next to a river meander. The Mathews' house, which was destroyed by a channel shift in the McKenzie River last year, was also located adjacent to a meander. These wide turns are where the river is most likely to change course when it cuts across the neck of a U-shaped turn, leaving only an "oxbow lake" where the channel used to be and substantially reshaping the river just upstream and downstream.
At the public meeting on the loss of the Mathews' property on Feb. 4, 2004, County Commissioner Bobby Green stated, "We need to learn from this."
This community so far hasn't learned anything. The City of Springfield does, however, know what meander scars are -- like the ones next to the old Sony Plant.
For this community to consider putting not just one, but two hospitals in areas at risk of flood danger could be the most irresponsible, arrogant and idiotic decision this community's leaders have ever made. Knowing we could be without a hospital when we need it most, during an already catastrophic flood affecting both tributaries, is unfathomable. You absolutely do not build emergency services in areas at risk of flood!
If they go ahead with this site and a flood like the one we had in 1964 strikes, this letter will stick with the planners forever. McKenzie-Willamette had better take a second look as well.
Please understand, it is not so important that our hospital rooms have a nice river view.
David Rodriguez lives just upstream from where the Mathews' house once stood, and has been involved with river-related issues since the mid-1990s.