Straddling Multnomah and Clackamas counties, the Willamette National Cemetery is the largest cemetery in Oregon for military veterans, their spouses and dependent children. Even though it won’t reach capacity for 15 years, The Department of Veterans Affairs is already planning for expansion by possibly acquiring roughly 300 acres of farmland southeast of Salem.
Per reporting by the Salem Reporter, the agency announced last September it was conducting an environmental assessment of the property, a functioning vineyard located in the unincorporated community of Macleay. Residents there have expressed concerns to VA officials about impacts on water usage, traffic and the rural character of their farming community.
Earlier this month, Marion County Commissioners sent a letter to the VA echoing those concerns and urging the agency to find an alternative site. Gov. Tina Kotek has also now gotten involved by writing directly to VA Secretary Doug Collins to work with the commissioners to find a different location.
The Salem Reporter’s Hailey Cook has been following these developments and joins us to share more details.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. The Department of Veterans Affairs wants to acquire a vineyard southeast of Salem for a new national cemetery, but local residents and elected officials and even the governor are all pushing back. They’re worried about water use and traffic, and what a cemetery would mean for the rural character of the farming community. Hailey Cook has been following this for the Salem Reporter and joins us now. It’s great to have you on Think Out Loud.
Hailey Cook: Thank you for having me, Dave.
Miller: Why does the VA say that it needs a new site for a national cemetery?
Cook: So this is a question that was actually left unanswered for a long time. We assumed that the existing Willamette National Cemetery in Portland was nearing capacity, but at this time it’s still taking graves, so we never had an official answer on that until recently. But VA officials did say that it is expected to reach capacity in 15 years. So the VA began their property search recently for the expansion.
Miller: Can you describe the site that they have zeroed in on?
Cook: So, the site at Howell Prairie Road, it’s located in the unincorporated community of Macleay. It’s an active vineyard, a farming operation. It’s a little over 300 acres, and the community I’d say is largely a farming rural community.
Miller: How did the VA settle on this particular site in Marion County?
Cook: This is another great question that was largely unanswered for a while, but recently we learned that it was scouted by the VA during a market research that they did between December 2023 and September 2024. And they were essentially looking for a property over 270 acres with infrastructure and land that would be suitable for the construction of a new cemetery. They found 14 potential sites in that search that met their criteria and ultimately settled on the Howell Prairie Road property.
Miller: In your original article about this back in September, you had a line that was confusing to me. So this is after the VA said that it was evaluating this particular parcel, and then you talked to the vineyard company’s manager who said that the VA’s letter was the first he heard of their interest to acquire the property. He told you the property was strictly a farming operation and not currently for sale. So what happened?
Cook: So that strictly farming operation quote came from me asking him if the property was a winery, and it is not, so they’re not actually making wine on the property, they’re just growing the grapes to make the wine. And while the property isn’t officially on the market, the VA scouted it and, from my understanding, then got in touch with the company and asked to buy it, essentially.
Miller: And the company is interested. So we’ll talk about the pushback, but the landowners themselves say yes, we’d like to sell.
Cook: That’s correct. They’re now saying that they are willing to sell it to the VA.
Miller: How big would this cemetery be? I mean, has the VA said what the gravesite capacity is?
Cook: So this cemetery would be more or less the same size as the existing Willamette National Cemetery, and the current Willamette National Cemetery has over 200,000 graves and it is nearing capacity, so we can infer that this new development would have about the same amount once construction was fully complete.
Miller: At this point, where has pushback to the plan come from?
Cook: So it first came from the neighbors. They did their first Grange meeting at the Macleay Grange, I believe it was in October, shortly after the VA announced that they were scoping the Howell Prairie Road property for its environmental effects of a cemetery. And they have been pushing back on this ever since and working tirelessly to get communication from the VA, to get answers. And since then county commissioners, Marion County Commissioners, Representative Paul Evans have expressed pushback. And then more recently, Governor Tina Kotek authored a letter to the VA asking them to work with our commissioners to find a more suitable location for the cemetery.
Miller: So let’s turn to some of the specific concerns. In a recent letter to the VA, the Marion County Commission warned that they would not be able to use the water that currently is being used to grow grapes. Why not? What did the county commission say?
Cook: So the commissioner said that the property has a water certificate that is allowing it to use the well water that it’s using to grow the grapes. But they said that the water certificate covers what is being used for statewide land use goals, and they said that the cemetery does not fit that criteria for statewide land use goals and that essentially they would not be able to use the water on that property to do the landscaping or whatever they need to use it for.
Miller: What have you heard about traffic? What are the specific traffic concerns?
Cook: So in the VA’s draft environmental assessment, they assessed that the cemetery could bring over 200 additional cars to Macleay’s roads daily. And this is something that has been a concern by neighbors from the beginning, cause if you just drive through Macleay, you’ll immediately notice these roads: they’re windy, they’re narrow, an influx of traffic to this area would be immediately noticeable, and it raises the question of can these roads even suit this influx of traffic daily?
Miller: There’s a big difference between a cemetery and, say, a housing development or a factory, but what have residents and local leaders said about what this would mean for the rural character of the area?
Cook: So this community is really defined by open farmland and agriculture, and locals are concerned that this large-scale development could fundamentally change their community’s rural character. And the project will convert productive Willamette Valley farmland into a long term construction zone and that would produce decades of noise, possibly heavy traffic and congestion on these rural roads. And those impacts, many say, clash with the area’s identity as this peaceful farming community.
Miller: County commissioners have brought up another issue as well. They’re against the VA’s proposed demolition of the Waldo House. What is the Waldo House?
Cook: So, the Waldo House was the home of Daniel and Melinda Waldo, who came to Oregon on the Oregon Trail around the mid 1800s, and that home still stands on the property, but it’s definitely not in the best shape. If you look at recent pictures, it’s clearly abandoned, it’s boarded up, and some of its original features are missing. And the VA has proposed demolishing it for this cemetery, but the commissioners and several other local officials and neighbors are against that proposal.
Miller: What kind of public engagement has the VA done to hear directly from community members about these various concerns?
Cook: The VA has hosted two meetings in Salem at the library on Thursday, April 30. They began those meetings with a presentation, just kind of walking through the timeline for the project, and giving some more details about it that we haven’t heard before. And that was followed by what I call the “note card and answer” portion of the meeting, where instead of taking questions aloud during a traditional Q&A, they were asking neighbors strictly to write down their questions on note cards to then be sorted on stage by VA executives and answered there. And that was the first time that many neighbors got a response from the VA.
Miller: OK, so there’s local opposition and opposition from the county commission and even the governor as you noted, but what legal mechanisms are there to prevent the VA from eventually going forward with this?
Cook: That’s a great question, and I think for many it’s unclear. This is kind of an unprecedented situation for the neighbors. They’re up against a bigger entity than they have ever had to face before. A few years ago, they pushed back on, and then which led to the shutdown, of a project that was proposed by county officials, but this is a much, much different beast and much larger. So I think that’s something that a lot of people are mulling over, including local politicians and the neighbors.
Miller: What’s the possible timing now?
Cook: So the VA just recently, on May 21, closed the public comment period for the final environmental assessment. So we are now waiting on that assessment to be published, and the VA would not provide a date for when that could happen.
Miller: Hailey, thanks very much.
Cook: Thank you.
Miller: Hailey Cook is a reporter for the Salem Reporter. She covers healthcare and business.
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