The folks at Young Life, the Christian youth organization that operates a camp at the former Big Muddy Ranch in Jefferson and Wasco counties, must wonder where they went wrong. So, frankly, do we.

Last year, Young Life officials approached state Rep. John Huffman, R-The Dalles, and others, including state Rep. Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte, to ask for legislative help in gaining permission to expand its youth camp on the ranch. The ranch is zoned for exclusive farm use, and expanding would, supporters believed, take an act of the Legislature to ensure that it could be done.

The result was House Bill 3098, which began its life as a straightforward dispensation from having to follow some land-use regulations during expansion. Those regulations are designed, in part, to ensure that agricultural land is not gobbled up by greedy developers, but the ranch lies miles from the nearest city on some of the driest land in Oregon and is hardly destination resort material.

By the time the bill became law, it had changed dramatically. No longer written for the exclusive benefit of Young Life, it covered all current and potential camps located on rangeland in Oregon. The state Department of Land Conservation and Development was tasked with creating new rules to accompany it. The Land Conservation and Development Commission, which oversees the department, is expected to consider those rules today.

They’re a far cry from what Young Life sought, so much so that the group worries it will not be able to expand at all. Among other things, the rules will limit expansion to just over half of one square mile on a property that contains 100 square miles of mostly desert. And that, as McLane points out, means a loss of millions of dollars in construction wages as well as a denied opportunity for more young people to attend the very popular camp.

All this leaves Young Life with the prospect of going back to the legislative drawing board, and it’s far from certain lawmakers would give it what it seeks, McLane says. Meanwhile, it can blame DLCD for managing to so completely thwart what was clear legislative intent less than two years ago.