Portland Harbor
Community Advisory Group
Asks
Jim McKenna,
Portland Harbor Policy Analyst
State of Oregon Natural Resources
to speak
The City of St. Helens has offered the Lagoon that was Boise Veneer Mill site a location to place Superfund dredging.
Where to dump the contaminated dredging for the Portland Harbor Superfund?
Please give your opinion…
May 8, 2019
BES Waterlab
6543 N Burlington
6:30-8:30
This location is a poor choice to secure contaminated dredgings. The lagoon is directly against and touching the river with no land buffer whatsoever, at the level of the river is. It will leak someday, and this location puts it right back into the river.
The risk from flood at this location seems unacceptable. One flooding event sends this all right back into the river. It is susceptible to flooding events from 3 large rivers as it sits at the confluence of the Columbia, the Lewis, and Multnomah Channel (Willamette river.)
There is a natural creek and natural runoff slope that leads from South 11th Street in Saint Helens directly into the NW of the lagoon. This constant natural flow of water from that direction into the lagoon will disturb/intract deposits in the lagoon. The bedrock is exposed here, the whole slope is into the lagoon, constant natural runoff along the rock face and through cracks into the lagoon will damage.
There are also neighborhoods along there that don’t want a Superfund waste dredging dumped in their location. The dust and blowing debris during construction and movement, and then once in place… are hazards to the people… and entire environment of the area surrounding it by how many miles?
Sorry, corrections to my previous comment:
Creek enters in the SW of the lagoon, and “disturb/intract” should read “disturb/interact”
If the Toxic-Cancer-Superfund-material is not good for Portland, it’s not good for downtown St. Helens. A literal city block away from downtown St. Helens.
By that logic, why isn’t the city of Portland giving this Super-toxic-cancer-material in downtown Portland.
Give the cancer to poor people is the logic, and putting it on a flood plain.
100% agree with Shawn Peterson. Why would you put contaminated soil right next to the river downstream from where you’re digging it up? Rivers flood, they change course periodically after flooding. There is zero chance that this site would contain the poisons or keep them from washing out. Within a number of years it’ll all be back in the river sediment, meaning the cleanup funds will have been wasted, and disturbing the environment further still, it will have to be cleaned up all over again, this time 100% on the taxpayer’s dime.
This is a dangerously terrible idea.