Michael Keiser’s proposed New River golf course south of Bandon is rising for a third time.

Twice now Keiser, through his company Bandon Biota, has applied for a permit to place a golf course on property he owns in the vicinity of Twomile Creek, adjacent to Bandon State Natural Area. The first attempt, about ten years ago, included a purchase of 280 acres of the state park for some 2.5 million. That project ended when it became known that Keiser had hired a local well-drilling company to drill unauthorized boreholes in the state park property which he coveted, but did not own at that stage of the negotiations. Bandon Biota applied to Coos County a second time in 2022 for the golf course, this time without the state park land. Though Coos County granted the permit, Keiser withdrew the application after Oregon Coast Alliance filed an appeal of the planning commission approval.

Now Bandon Biota has filed a third application with Coos County. It is not yet available to the public, as the county has not completed its review and has not declared the application complete or incomplete. Nevertheless, Bandon Biota at the same time filed three applications with the Water Resources Department (WRD) to transfer water that it owns on cranberry bogs up to the proposed golf course. The applications make it sound innocent: just a change from irrigation in one place to irrigation in another place. But irrigation of cranberry bogs is not the same as irrigating turf grass — cranberries are much more water-conserving than turf grass is. Water availability is already a longstanding problem for the farmers and rural residences in the area. At the 2022-23 hearings for the golf course, water problems occupied much of the discussion, and Keiser’s water report was criticized for being vague and incomplete. Now his company is seeking water transfers to the proposed golf course with no analysis at all of the likely effects to the neighborhood water picture.

Despite the fact that there is no golf course application to refer to, WRD decided to go ahead with the transfer applications. ORCA argued that it is inappropriate, under its own rules, for WRD to be considering major water transfers when there is nothing known about the project to which they will be transferred. ORCA is also keeping close watch on the golf course application making its way through administrative review in Coos County, as it will presumably come up for hearings eventually.

The City of Port Orford’s planning commission will hold a hearing June 10th at 5:30 pm on the time extension for the Elk River Property Development’s conditional Use Permits for the pipeline they propose to build from Port Orford out to the (unbuilt) golf course at Knapp Ranch for irrigation, using the city’s graywater, CUPs 16-02 and 16-03. To submit testimony, send to Joseph Harrison, and Melissa Radcliffe.

These annual time extensions have been requested, and granted by the city without a murmur, since at least 2019. But ERPD did not apply for the extension in 2024, and the 2023 extension expired on April 20th of this year. The tangle is that the city did not issue its 2023 final order for that year’s time extension until March 2024 due to city staffing gaps. When it came out, the final order said that the extension granted began on April 20, 2023 — meaning that it was almost expired when the order was finally issued.

So, is the ERPD time extension annual merry-go-round over because they did not apply in time in 2024 to renew it? Maybe. It transpires that ERPD wrote to the city in January 2024, requesting the annual time extension permit, but also requesting the planning commission not process the extension until the status of the 2023 extension was determined.

The end result of this confusing maze is that the city planning commission is holding a hearing on June 10 at 5:30 pm to consider the 2024 extension. Whether or not the time extension can even be considered at this point, nearly two months after the 2023 extension expired, is a contentious issue. If the extension cannot be renewed at this point, the pipeline permits of 2017 are dead.

The Oregon Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation, considering the 2025 transportation funding package for the Department of Transportation, is holding “conversations” around the state, in both urban and rural areas. The first one on the coast is in Tillamook on June 18th, followed by Coos Bay on August 7th. At each session there will be a roundtable of local leaders, followed by a listening session in the evening where members will listen to local people.

Legislators want to hear from local folks about their transportation priorities — and this will significantly influence how the funding package is shaped. Shall the coast begin thinking about how to return rail service to local communities, building on the pioneering work of the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad? Should transportation money go to local road providers (counties and cities) for maintenance and upkeep rather than the state for new projects? What planning focus should the Department of Transportation have for the longstanding problems of Highway 101, ranging from too many new driveways on the highway to persistent landslides and erosion problems?

Anyone interested, please reach out to Cassie Wilson, Transportation Manager at 1000 Friends of Oregon, here.