Eric Flowers

Hay farm today, auto mall tomorrowYou can't see Bend's sprawling auto malls and shopping centers, or the rows and rows of cookie cutter homes, from Dave Hanson's hay and cattle ranch south of Redmond, but Hanson, whose family has been farming out here since the 1940s, can feel it - sure enough.
Hanson breeds brood stock cattle which he has shipped to as far away as Japan, but he wonders how long he and other farmers can make a living off the land when cities continue to chew up agricultural land to feed their appetite for new homes, malls and office buildings.

Obviously Bend can’t expand the UGB fast enought to keep up with this kind of demand.By all accounts, the 16 months it took for the Bend Urban Area Planning Commission to define and approve a new urban growth boundary for the city seemed like a lifetime, but judging by the raucous applause erupting from the more than 50 people sitting in on the October 28 hearing, many local property owners seemed to approve the plan.
Critics however, are questioning whether the proposed boundary map is anything more than a blueprint for sprawl and a giveaway to builders and developers.
The commission voted 5-1 (Commissioner Nathan Hovekamp cast the only "nay" vote and Commissioner Steve Miller did not attend the hearing) in favor of expanding Bend’s UGB by 8,943 gross acres. The majority of new growth would occur on land bordering the city’s western, northern and eastern edges, with a small portion on Bend’s south side.

This past week the State of Oregon sent out a health advisory announcing that a former mine and toxic waste disposal site along the Deschutes River near Terrebonne is nothing to worry about. That's news to neighbors who say they have been inundated with what they say are cancer-causing dust clouds. They say the state has downplayed the risks associated with the site even as its owners lay plans to redevelop the former mine as a rural housing subdivision.