Portland Harbor Community Advisory Group

Published in Willamette Week: http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-19152-take_me_to_the_river.html

We are a major metropolitan area with salmon and steelhead runs, tailed by hungry sea lions, through city limits. But for decades we used the river as a ditch for our refuse, gagging it with sewage and offal.

We brought the Willamette back from the dead in the 1960s and have given it a new chance with a recently finished, $1.4 billion sewer project intended to keep its waters safe.

Reported by Willamette Week 4/26/12:  http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-28559-railroad_company_fined_$37500_for_not_being_careful_enough_with_superfund_dirt.html

EPA says BNSF Railway Company excavated and removed 36 cubic yards of soil near the cap boundary in 2009, as part of a project stabilizing the ground for a train pull-off. EPA cited BNSF for not labeling the dirt as polluted, then improperly storing and transporting it, all violations of federal hazardous waste law.

Posted at http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/04/cutting_through_the_...

The Portland Harbor conversation must ramp up while focusing on things unseen and underwater. That's where the attentions of regulators are -- justifying dredging here and capping there, directly affecting the fortunes of so many industries and the Willamette River itself.

Aired April 4, 2012
GUESTS: 

• Barbara Smith: Spokesperson for the Lower Willamette Group
• Travis Williams: Executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper

http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/willamette-river-superfund-site/

As reported by Willamette Week - http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-28436-five_filthy_facts_fr.html

You can download an executive summary of the study here.

But first, let's address the five most important things the study says.