News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The Sisters City Council would like to see new development at the former site of Sisters Chevron — or at least an obscuring fence around the deep, rubble-strewn hole in the ground where gas tanks once were stored.
Neither is likely to happen anytime soon.
The sale and future development of the property are on hold while the owner, American Energy, figures out how to deal with contamination left behind by the old gasoline tanks.
The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) confirms that the owners “found some contamination” on the site. Before DEQ can “close” the site, American Energy must determine the extent of that contamination — how far it goes down into the ground and how widely it spreads across the property.
Then the property must be cleaned up.
City Planner Brian Rankin told the Sisters Council at its meeting on Thursday night that it looks like it will be several months before clean-up is completed.
“As I understand it, there is quite a bit of contamination still there,” he said.
Randy Moss of American Energy said “these things take time and we’re working on it” and that the project will be completed “when it’s done.”
Meanwhile, at least one business owner has complained about the appearance of the site, according to city records. The council doesn’t like it either.
“It’s just ugly for it to be in the middle of our town,” Councilor Sharlene Weed said.
Rankin said the city asked the owner in January to put up a slat fence to obscure the property. There is already a chainlink security fence blocking access to the site. The city invoked its nuisance ordinance, saying any “junk, debris and/or garbage must be removed from the property or screened behind a site obscuring fence.”
Moss replied that he doubted the property constitutes a public nuisance. He also said that “we are unaware of any Sisters Municipal code that requires us to screen the property with site obscuring fence.”
Greg Vernon of American Energy told The Nugget that the company “most definitely” did some clean-up on the site after the January exchange of letters, removing clutter and some old signage that remained.
Rankin told The Nugget that after talking with legal counsel it appears that the nuisance ordinance is too narrow to apply to this case and the city doesn’t have a lot of leverage to get American Energy to screen the site other than good-neighbor expectations.
Prospective owner Nick Veroske has expressed willingness to help.
“As the future owner of the property, I’d just as soon not have it be an eyesore,” he said. He said he is “willing to participate at some level in the cost of a fence there.”
Veroske told The Nugget he is studying the possibility of commercial development on the site that would serve local needs on a year-round basis.
“Sisters is changing pretty rapidly,” he said. “There’s certainly enough gift stores to serve tourists, but there’s not enough services to serve year-round residents.”
Veroske is considering the possibility of some residential development on the site, possibly in a mixed use configuration with commercial activity below and residential units above.
“It’s a tremendous location,” Veroske said. “The city would like to see commercial activities there that draw people into downtown.”
But that will have to wait until the property is cleaned up and that process is moving slowly. The last day excavators worked there was February 16.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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