Commissioners keep Oakridge quarry proposal alive, delay decision till December 

A motion to deny a controversial mining application near Oakridge failed 3-2 before the Lane County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday, further delaying a decision some leaders and residents believe is long overdue.

Over the past decade, a proposal by Old Hazeldell Quarry LLC to build a quarry in Oakridge has faced repeated votes, appeals, delays and widespread community opposition.

The applicants cited a desire to create economic opportunity and provide locally sourced gravel. 

Residents believe the operation, which would tower over trail systems, would harm the evolution of the recovering timber town into the “mountain biking capital of the Pacific Northwest.”

They also worry about the city’s drinking water supply, which is drawn from an aquifer connected to the butte. A closed landfill also lies under the butte possibly containing hazardous chemical waste, according to state and University of Oregon assessments.

Old Hazeldell Quarry LLC, a company under Crown Properties, a family trust for the King family, of King Estate Winery and Ed King, first proposed the quarry on the butte in 2015.

Commissioners denied the quarry application in 2021, partly due to concerns about how the project would impact wildlife and habitat. In 2023, a second, new application was filed for the project. Old Hazeldell Quarry LLC’s second application essentially asked for the same thing it did two years earlier, but it added several technical reports about air quality and noise.

In January 2025, commissioners voted 3-2 to direct staff to draft an ordinance of approval the project needs to move forward. Commissioners held the first reading of the ordinance Tuesday, Oct. 20, with chair Ryan Ceniga reading it from a county memo. In short, the ordinance rezones the property from its current designation as forestland to that of quarry and mine operations.

As part of the ordinance reading, the commissioners reopened a public hearing. The applicant’s attorney, Bill Kloos, attended remotely. He said, legally speaking, his client has already provided the necessary information commissioners and the public need at this step of the process.

About 30 people testified, all in opposition. 

They reiterated concerns about the economy and the environment, underscoring the University of Oregon aquifer study published in summer 2025, which came months after the commission voted to draft a rezoning ordinance. 

Public comment included that from city of Oakridge employees, including city planner Guen DiGioia, who pointed to ambiguity about potential chemical waste at the defunct landfill. The landfill, which closed in 1970, is located in the southwest corner of TV Butte. 

She told the commission that the Oakridge Industrial Park, less than a mile away from the landfill, is an Environment Protection Agency brownfield. The agency defines a brownfield as “complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.” This year, the city received a $500,000 grant from the EPA to assess contamination at the park.

“It is reviewing the known contaminants of the Oakridge Industrial Park, and we speculate that many of the same contaminants that are known in the park can be found at the old dump site,” DiGioia said, referring to the closed landfill near Dunning Road.  

Lookout Eugene-Springfield obtained a 2016 memo from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality about the dump. The state agency stated that “it is possible that hazardous materials were dumped” and could contain “PCBs, solvent related compounds, dioxins/furans, heavy metals, and possibly pesticides.”

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, don’t easily – if ever – degrade. That resistance is similar to dioxins, a group of chemicals formed during industrial processes such as treating timber products and making pulp and paper. PCBs and dioxins each are associated with an increase in cancer. 

“Given that folks at that time period [before the 1970s], way back when, were dumping both in the landfill and at the mill, so we want to make sure that that is known and understood,” DiGioia said. 

Her colleague, city administrator James Cleavenger, spoke next during the public comment session. He said the Oakridge City Council voted last week for a resolution formally opposing the project. It’s the sixth time they’ve voted on such a resolution, he said. 

“City Council doesn’t want it. People don’t want it,” he said. “I’m referring to campaign contributions to commissioner [Pat] Farr, Ceniga and [David] Loveall. I think this is corruption in plain sight, and you should be ashamed of yourselves, and I have no idea how you sleep at night.”

Farrr, Ceniga and Loveall have received $10,000, $22,000 and $10,000 respectively in contributions from Ed King in the 2022 and 2026 election cycles. 

The three commissioners voted against the motion to deny the application, a motion brought forward by Commissioner Heather Buch and seconded by commissioner Laurie Trieger.

“The reason I’m making this motion and not to make a motion for three additional weeks is, as I mentioned, we’ve had a lot of testimony over the course of 10 years to the board regarding this particular application,” Buch said. “We have had the planning commission unanimously oppose, and we should consider that very seriously.”

Farr said he voted against the motion, because he wanted to consider new information he learned, specifically about potential connection to the brownfield. 

“[We] have some compelling testimony that I’d like to digest,” Farr said. 

In another motion, the commission voted to enter the text of the ordinance into public record and allow for all parties to submit new evidence or arguments until Oct. 27. 

The commission will reconvene for a second reading and deliberations Dec. 1. 

In the hallway after Tuesday’s vote, Sabrina Ratkowski — the president of nonprofit Oakridge Strong and organizational executive director of the “Save TV Butte” movement — called the outcome frustrating.

“There’s been overwhelming documentation provided,” she said. “Considering the overwhelming opposition from our cities, from environmentalists, from multiple nonprofits, and there are no people who are coming up in support of this quarry, what is there still to talk about?” 

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A long-proposed gravel quarry wants to return heavy natural resource extraction to Oakridge, a recovering timber town that has reshaped itself into a tourism hub. TV Butte, the location of the proposed site, is connected to an aquifer, which provides drinking water for over 3,000 people. After a decade-long conflict between the developer and local…