2018 Bi-Mart Country Music Festival could bring 60,000 people to Ankeny Wildlife Refuge area

For 2018, Bi-Mart wants to move its annual Country Music Festival from Brownsville, Oregon to farmland adjacent to the Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge near Salem.

[Update: the Statesman Journal has a story about the festival, "Willamette Country Music Festival's move to Marion County raises concerns about refuge." Here's how it starts off.]

Organizers of the Bi-Mart Willamette Country Music Festival want to move the four-day event to Marion County and more than double its size, to as many as 60,000 attendees per day.

But opposition is building over the proposed location: 692 acres of farmland bordering Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge, 12 miles south of Salem.

Opponents, including neighbors, farmers and birders, say the event has the potential to create miles-long traffic backups on Interstate 5 and through the refuge; increase theft, vandalism, litter and the likelihood of accidents at the refuge and surrounding farms; and harm wildlife at the refuge.

The for-profit event, staged in Brownsville for the past 10 years, offers camping and boasts more than 30 acts. This year they include Alabama, Kid Rock and Lady Antebellum.

This is a screenshot from the event's Outdoor Mass Gathering permit application.

The I-5 freeway exit closest to the event is the Ankeny Hill exit, shown in the upper right corner. There would be additional parking areas in other spots not shown on this image. You can download the application via the link below.
Download BiMartCountryMusicFestivalMGApp

Since the organizers are estimating 40,000 to 60,000 people would attend the four day event -- August 16-19, 2018 -- and opponents of the festival say it could be as many as 70,000, this is shaping up to be a major controversy. Even though the festival would bring money into Salem and Albany, it also could cause some major traffic, environmental, and other problems.

[January Update: Friends of Marion County has submitted additional testimony regarding the impact the festival would have on farmers and surrounding neighborhoods, plus other problems that have occurred at the Brownsville site.]
Download FMC Additional testimony + Exhibits - CU17-043(Gross)

An Albany Democrat-Herald story about the festival's application to Marion County for a Outdoor Mass Gathering says:

"Our goal is to leave the property, always, in condition equal to or better than it was when we arrived," the permit application states.

The application estimates the economic impact of the four-day festival, as measured by tourism groups, at more than $3.5 million annually to the local economy.

Since its beginnings in Brownsville more than a decade ago, the festival has requested volunteer help from schools and mid-valley nonprofits, providing more than $250,000 each year in return.

My wife is active with a group of people, including farmers in the area, who are opposing moving the Country Music Festival from Brownsville. She's heard that the reasons this is being attempted is to be able to have a bigger venue so more people could attend the festival, and because volunteers in the Brownsville area are burning out, so festival organizers want to start fresh in a new place.

We live close to the Ankeny Wildlife Refuge. Here's a map my wife made which shows the refuge (in green) and where the festival's stage, camping, and parking would be located. "Creeks" is printed at the bottom of the map.

This is a traffic flow map included in the Outdoor Mass Gathering application. Festival attendees would take the Talbot Road and Ankeny Hill exits, and also would arrive from points north by taking Liberty Road S, which becomes Buena Vista when it reaches the edge of the refuge.

So lots of vehicles would be traveling on roads adjacent to and through the refuge for the four days of the festival.

Tickets are being sold for the 2018 Willamette Country Music Festival on the event's web site. There's an impressive list of top performers: Alabama, Eric Church, Lady Antebellum, and Kid Rock. 

Marion County is having a hearing on the festival's Outdoor Mass Gathering permit application on December 20 at 4 pm in the Senator Hearing Room on the first floor of Courthouse Square in downtown Salem. 
Download Mass Gathering Hearing Notice

This seems suspiciously close to Christmas.

A fact which gives me reason to believe that the three Republican Marion County Commissioners aren't eager to have a big crowd of farmers, environmentalists, and lefties come out to urge the permit be denied. There's no email address in the Hearing Notice to which testimony for or against the Mass Gathering Permit should be sent, but I'm pretty sure it is [email protected] 

Reportedly the Hearing Officer will produce a report by January 31, and the Board of Commissioners will make a decision on the Mass Gathering Permit by February 28.

If the permit is denied by the Board of Commissioners, apparently the 2018 Bi-Mart Willamette Country Music Festival would be held at the Brownsville location. Or, the organizers could appeal the denial.

Here's a brief video that accompanied the Statesman Journal story mentioned above.

Comments

[James Priddy]

I'm all for the festival. More traffic for four days? Why is that an issue? It happens during every football game...ALL SEASON.
I'm all for environmental safety but has this well organized event ever had problems with that?
Farmers, because of their "status", make issues of every little issue that causes them a little inconvenience. I worked as an operator on county and state roads all my career and never failed to have them complaining about the inconvenience road construction caused them.
Any worthwhile event or celebration brings traffic. That's the nature of them.
Grocery stores are so crowded that one almost always bumps or nearly does while shopping. THERE ARE MORE OF US!
Music elevates so many people from life's calamities, it seems that the inclusion of singing, dancing, and enjoyment would be welcomed by all.

[Not Even Wrong]

Curious, you seem to raise the proximity of the refuge as a justification for denial of the permit but don't offer any specific items of concern other than increased traffic on the road adjacent to the refuge during the event. Traffic isn't a potential problem, it's an expected reality with an event of this size. So what are the specific environmental and other concerns?

Full disclosure, I have been a regular attendee of the event in Brownsville over the last 6 years. This is a very well run event from a logistics, public safety, environmental stewardship, and community integration perspective.

[Brian Hines]

Not Even Wrong, the Brownsville event obviously wasn't held right next to a National Wildlife Refuge. Reports from people who volunteered at the Brownsville festival have spoken of drunken people vomiting on shuttle buses. It's difficult to believe that with 60,000 people tromping around next to the refuge for four days, there isn't going to be some environmental damage. Plus, the simple fact of making the refuge inaccessible to visitors for those four days is disturbing. Farmers in the area worry about not being able to get to their fields for that period of time. There are good reasons for concern, and I'm sure I haven't touched on all of those reasons, since I'm not directly involved with the opposition to this event.

[Allyson Miller]

This festival must really be bad if the tiny town of Brownsville is willing to turn down millions of dollars.

Some of the farms around Ankeny are nearing century farms. They have paid taxes on their lands since before the 1900’s. They have worked out an agreeable and advantageous conservation plan for wildlife in the area.

I farm near here. I am also an avid cyclist, and these are the safest roads I can ride a bike. I see mothers on the street walking with strollers; it is just that safe out there. We will not be able to use the area the same, not just for a few days, but for the weeks it takes to set the infrastructure of the festival up. It will ruin the entire summer for everyone, including the wildlife we all cherish to see.

This area is ionic, unique and unspoiled. No one wants to change that. The compacting of the soil, invasion of the nesting and food source of the wildlife, and road safety will be taken from those who have cared for the area and paid the taxes for decades. Brownsville is a unique NW town more suitable for sustaining the impact of this festival’s thousands of people, than the delicately balanced ecosystem of Ankeny. You cannot control all the sanitary issues, noise, trespass, and wildlife abuse, and other infrastructure abuse this festival would inflict on its existing farming/ecosystem community. Just setting it up would permanently damage the ecology, much less over 60,000 sets of feet on the wetlands.

Whoever thought of this, does not care to keep Ankeny a refuge for wildlife.

I will not financially benefit from this festival, in fact, it will increase my property taxes for infrastructure changes, and cause my insurance to go up because God forbid a drunk festival goer falls in my drainage ditch and drowns. It will interfere with farming activity, farm trucks, and field burning. Because of these issues, the festival will demand we change the infrastructure such as the roads and ruin the beauty of the deep watershed that runs alongside them.

No, Ankeny would be damaged for a tinsel town show. Not on my dime. I go there to hear the birds, and August is a vital time for migrating birds that simply will be forced to leave. The whole summer experience would be ruined. Stay in Brownsville or go to Enchanted Forest, or a fairground – or better yet, find another state to hold your show.

[Judy Brunkal]

The location is a big mistake. The number of people expected, at 60,000 is more than any outdoor festival previously held. The roads going into this area are narrow two-way farm roads. Shorebirds use the refuge at this time as a stop on their migration route. Why hold such an event right next to a wildlife refuge? People attending such venues tend to be in a celebratory mood, which means alcohol and drugs are in use. Traffic, trash, noise and human waste will all be problems! Say NO to this location!

[Carol]

Not a good place to have a music festival at all. Federal land, wildlife and tens of thousands of humans crowded in are not a good fit.