Two things stand in the way of Oregon State University-Cascades’ vision for a 128-acre, modern campus: a former demolition landfill and a pumice mine as deep as a 10-story building is tall. However, university officials and engineers have a plan that would use those sites to the school’s advantage and decrease the project’s environmental footprint.

Steve Pitman, OSU-Cascades’ director of facilities and operations, and Stacy Frost, principal engineer with Vancouver, Washington-based engineering firm Maul Foster Alongi, said the university will use material from the pumice mine and the landfill to raise the bottom of the 100-foot-deep mine, located alongside Chandler Avenue, to about 60 feet and eventually terrace the entire campus to make getting around easier.

Using material already at the site will eliminate the need for more than 29,000 truckloads of fill that would need to be brought to the southwest Bend campus, Frost said.

“It would take thousands and thousands of trucks hauling material from somewhere else off-site to fill this hole in to make it a usable piece of property,” he said. “By utilizing this beneficial re-use of the waste to fill the hole in, it’s returning both of these areas into usable pieces of property for the community, and it’s removing the potential environmental hazard.”

Frost said the first step is to take pumice and clean soil from the mine and blend it with excavated dirt from the landfill. In industrial landfills, after material is dumped in, a 1- or 2-foot layer of dirt was added to keep the waste covered, Frost said. In developing the site, construction workers will screen the landfill material for usable dirt, removing any wood waste or organic waste, which can break down over time and cause the ground to settle if used for a foundation.

The mixture of pumice and cleaned dirt will be used to raise the floor of the pumice mine by about 40 feet. Eventually terraces will be added to create a gentle, gradual slope.

“The goal is to bring the bottom up enough to where we don’t need a lot of stairs, because stairs are not accessible for someone in a wheelchair, and they’re not easy to navigate in the winter here,” Pitman said. “There may be a few stairs, but we want to get to the point where we have accessible routes throughout the whole campus.”

The final action is to take the waste and wood debris not used in filling the mine and moving it to the campus’ northwest corner, to serve as a foundation for parks, parking lots, recreation fields and other open areas with no buildings.

The campus will likely maintain a few quirks: Pitman said the west side of the mine will have an exposed face of pumice for geology classes to use for study, and the campus’ southwest corner along Mt. Washington Drive will remain forested.

In the first phase of making the land usable, the pumice mine will be filled in and a small portion of the landfill will be remediated, which means environmental hazards such as methane-producing waste will be removed. Pitman said the campus will begin filling in the mine this spring, and the next phase of building and road construction — which includes an academic building and two mixed-use buildings — will break ground just northwest of the campus’ currently developed area in 2020.

Kelly Sparks, OSU-Cascades’ vice president of finance and strategic planning, said filling and grading the pumice mine will cost about $9.5 million, which the university received in the 2017 state legislative session. The total cost of developing the campus’ land will be between $45 million and $48 million, and OSU-Cascades plans on asking the Legislature in 2019 for $17.5 million for the next phase of cleaning up a large chunk of the industrial landfill. The school is also asking the Legislature for $12 million for a Student Success Center, which will be a hub for activities, internships, student services and more.

Sparks said she’s hopeful lawmakers will approve both of the university’s requests.

“I’m optimistic that they’ll see OSU-Cascades as a growing campus in Central Oregon serving the fastest growing region in the state,” she said.

“I wouldn’t expect them to approve both (requests), but we would love for them to approve both,” Pitman added. “If the Legislature can find the money, we will put it to good use.”

For community members worried about the construction’s environmental impact, Pitman said, the university and Maul Foster Alongi have developed their design “hand in hand” with Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality.

“It’s a very collaborative process with them in determining how we can do this in a way that is safe and healthy for everybody, both while we’re doing the work, and once we’re done,” he said.

OSU-Cascades’ master plan states construction of the entire campus will be completed by 2034, although it could take 10 to 15 years longer depending on when the university receives funding.

Pitman said the university will likely never finish adding buildings and projects. “The OSU campus in Corvallis isn’t done yet, and it’s been there for 150 years,” he said. “Every campus in the nation continues to make improvements as they go along, so I wouldn’t ever expect to get to the point where the person in my seat doesn’t have a job to do.”

OSU-Cascades will discuss the campus’ transformation at a Monday night Science Pub at McMenamins Old St. Francis School. The event is sold out, according to the university’s website.

— Reporter: 541-617-7854, jhogan@bendbulletin.com