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Join CUB at Portland Harbor Forum February 9

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Janice Thompson
Tags,  Water/Wastewater

Update - February 2, 2016: Janice appeared this morning on the Carl Wolfson show to give a preview of the panel she will be moderating next week on the Portland Harbor Superfund. You can listen to the interview here!

CUB is pleased to co-sponsor Cleaning Up the Willamette – the Portland Harbor Superfund with the League of Women Voters of Portland as one of their monthly civic engagement forums at 7:00pm on February 9th. We hope you will join us there.

Over 100 years of industrial activity in the Willamette River have resulted in documented contamination of water and sediments. The potential harmful health effects led the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to add the Portland Harbor on a priority list in 2000. Since then there has been extensive evaluation of the problem and possible solutions. The size and complexity of the site meant that analysis took time, but there have also been complications and delays. The pace has been picking up, though, and the EPA will be presenting its Proposed Plan this spring with the goal of describing its final remedy selection in a Record of Decision by the end of 2016.

This forum will provide background and information to prepare the public to review and comment on the Proposed Plan during a sixty-day public comment period later this spring.

Speakers will include representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nez Perce tribe, the Lower Willamette Group, and the Audubon Society with time for questions. CUB’s Janice Thompson will serve as moderator.

The logistics:
• Tuesday, February 9th, 7:00pm to 8:45pm
• Multnomah County Board Room, 501 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Portland

The forum will be videotaped by MetroEast Community Media.

Questions? Contact Janice Thompson at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

To keep up with CUB, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! You can also keep up to date with breaking news by joining our email list today!

12/27/16  |  2 Comments  |  Join CUB at Portland Harbor Forum February 9

Comments

  • 1.how I hate paying for all the mistakes Portland makes all the time. in 1970 You claim the Willamette river, had been cleaned up and now we are still paying for new sewer to clean it up again. Really and the Water co. is out of control. Art tax for schools but Arlene S. gets part of the money also. WHY? I am always surprised when some one buys a house in my neighborhood. But Wait lets pay a street tax so we can, park in front of our house, and let us not forget that Portland pays to maintain ALL the Bridges, Shouldn't that be a STATE thing??? Sellwood bridge L.O. Milwaukie did not have to pax any tax to drive on it. Why are we so against a TOLL Bridge?? if u use it u pay for it. And lets have a bike Tax. to pay for all the paths and green area. and a protest tax. Why do home owners have to pay for it all???

    Lulu | March 2016

  • 2.Lots of issues raised in this comment - the ones CUB can address relate to the Willamette River and two categories of water quality concerns. Due to mandates from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Portland’s “Big Pipe” projects from 1991 through 2011 reduced combined sewer overflows from occurring 100 days each year to less than 100 hours of overflow over the last four years. The water quality concern here is not wanting sewage in the river.

    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designated the Portland Harbor– a 10 mile stretch of the Willamette River from about the Broadway Bridge to Kelley Point Park – as a Superfund site in 2001. This program addresses contamination in and around the Willamette from 100 years of industrial use. The water quality concern, then, is a range of chemicals and other materials such as creosote and petroleum based wastes. Cleaning up these contaminants is based on “the polluter pays” principle.

    Amelia Lamb | March 2016

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