Brownfields Update for the Pacific Northwest

There’s a special word for a person who champions a brownfield site, transforming it from an eye soar into a community asset. We’re talking about the people who are unwavering, determined to do what it takes to create some good from one of these properties.

“Projects like this take what we call a brownfield’s bulldog, someone who is going to go after this and make it happen,” says Jim Glass, tanks project manager for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

For the Coastal Range Food Bank in Nashville, Ore., that bulldog is Carol Adams. Adams founded the food bank 13 years ago in nearby Summit. When the food bank had to be moved, Adams eyed an abandoned gas station in the tiny town of Nashville. After learning the property had a leaking underground storage tank, Adams still wasn’t deterred. She needed a new place for the food bank, which families in Lincoln and Benton counties had begun to rely on.

“I think Carol is the spark in the whole business,” says Earl Newman of Summit, a food bank volunteer. “She’s a pusher and she’s determined.”

The story of Adams and the Coastal Range Food Bank is a tale of perseverance. Adams never heard of a brownfield when she sought a new home for the food bank. She didn’t even know who to talk to. “I didn’t know what agency did what, who answered to who,” Adams admits.

But that didn’t stop her. After all, the community needed its food bank.

“There are people who come in who really depend on what they get here,” says Emmy Hoyhtya, who’s used the food bank as well as volunteered there. “I know there are many people who really need the help.”

A former engineer for NASA, Adams and her late husband came to Oregon 13 years ago from southern California. She thought she’d get some goats and settle into the western Oregon countryside. But Adams quickly saw Lincoln County had been hit hard by the declining timber industry. About 14 percent of people living there live below the poverty rate, according to the U.S. Census. A family of four living on less than $19,307 a year, or a retired couple living on $11,430 a year, lives below the poverty rate. The per capita income there is $18,692.

Adams thought the best way she could serve her community was by feeding those who needed it. Today, the food bank serves 70 families, or about 265 people. Most are senior citizens or young families. Some travel as far as 20 miles to pick up food. The food bank monthly distributes about 2,500 pounds of food. Over the years, it’s expanded into a second-hand clothing shop, too.

Adams established the food bank in the Summit Grange Hall. About five years ago, she saw an abandoned country store in Nashville, a town in the coastal mountains west of Corvallis. It was once called the Nashville Store; it was a grocery store, gas station and post office beginning in the 1930s. The post office was closed in the 1960s and the gas station followed in the 1970s. Though the building was rundown, Adams thought it would make a great location for the food bank once cleaned up. She tried to buy it but was informed of the leaking UST. She learned a large mortgage company in Texas owned the building and wrote officials there a letter, asking them to donate the property to the nonprofit. The food bank would take care of the contamination, she promised. However, Adams wasn’t getting anywhere with the mortgage company after several letters.

Eventually, Adams reached out to Charlie Landman, a legal policy advisor for DEQ’s land quality division in Portland. Landman also put her in touch with Glass. It was easy to get behind this project, Landman says. “The story that these folks tell, it’s pretty irresistible,” he says.

Meanwhile, a 2003 fire at the Grange Hall burned most of that building. Adams told Landman if the mortgage company was ever to donate the building, it needed to be done soon. Potential purchasers of the country store already had walked away, unwilling to deal with the contamination. Adams sent one final letter saying she would not ask again. “I didn’t know a darn thing,” she says. “It was just a sheer bluff.”

The mortgage company now was ready to do business. Landman developed a perspective purchaser agreement saying if the land was donated to the food bank, the state wouldn’t hold the company responsible for cleanup. The EPA came through with a $100,000 cleanup grant for the project. A hardship waiver was requested, and the EPA waived the cost share. It’s the only such waiver Glass has ever seen approved. However, the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department had already awarded the project a $20,000 assessment grant.

“We got the building and didn’t miss one month of food (distribution),” Adams says.

The fledgling Adams has served as project manager in the food bank’s renovation. She says it’s been a road with many twists, but the project is making strides. The USTs came out in December. While contamination was found in soils and groundwater near the tanks, the pump island and the Eddyville-Blodgett highway, it’s not as bad as suspected. Contaminated soils will be removed and the groundwater will be monitored. A green space also is planned. Glass expects to have the project completed by this fall.

Through the process, Adams has been an advocate for her community and hasn’t been intimidated by the topic of brownfields. “I couldn’t think of a better person to be willing to go after it and not be afraid to jump into discussions and work with regulators, county commissioners, whoever,” Glass says.

“This was a result of really one person being a shining light,” Landman says.