Public comment closes Friday, Jan. 2, on a construction application for a warehouse in the wetlands near the Eugene Airport. The application has been filed by a developer with ties to Amazon. 

Both state and federal regulators require such applications for projects that disturb wetlands to monitor compliance with the Clean Water Act. 

TC Pursuit Services Inc. filed the application Nov. 3 with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Oregon Department of State Lands. But the public comment period seemingly opened weeks later, just before the Christmas holiday.

Titled “Clear Lake E-Commerce,” the project includes a 318,000-square-foot building, semi-trailer parking and stormwater treatment infrastructure. The application does not name Amazon but describes the tenant as an “e-commerce company with economic interest in the area.”

TC Pursuit Services is a subsidiary of Trammell Crow Co., a Dallas-based commercial real estate developer that has built facilities for Amazon and other companies, according to reports from Texas, Washington and Wisconsin on similar fulfillment center proposals.

The construction application documents environmental impacts, including the filling of about 6.5 acres of saturated soil with imported earth or engineered materials such as concrete. The application states that no species protected under the federal Endangered Species Act rely on the site’s habitat.

However, it acknowledges documented sightings of the Western pond turtle in the surrounding area. That species is classified as “sensitive-critical” on Oregon’s State Sensitive Species List.

The application did not elaborate on emissions tied to the 976 fleet vehicle parking spaces and the roughly 2,600 daily vehicle trips the project could generate. It remains unclear how many of those vehicles would be electric, diesel-powered or a combination.

The Environmental Protection Agency has long linked vehicle exhaust to asthma and other respiratory illnesses, with children particularly vulnerable because of their developing lungs. 

To regulate emissions, the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency approved an air permit in September. That permitting process garnered its own round of public comments. 

While the project is located in a zoned industrial development area that the city designated to concentrate heavy uses away from residential neighborhoods, public concerns remain about its broader impacts.

Specifically, commenters raised concerns about truck traffic that could still cut through nearby neighborhoods, including Trainsong and Bethel. Residents from those areas wrote that their communities have already “suffered too much” from industrial pollution.