In the same week that Congress approved President Trump’s appointment of Scott Pruitt to head the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, key officials from Portland and Oregon met at Portland City Hall to initiate action on a federally decreed $1 billion cleanup of toxic sediments beneath a 10-mile segment of the Willamette River.
They did not need to do this, but they did, and it was smart of them.
The cleanup zone, mapped as the Portland Harbor Superfund site, is a federal creation dating back 17 years and for which an official EPA cleanup plan was delivered only late last year. But the election in November of Donald Trump and, now, the arrival of Pruitt, historically an EPA-basher, could mean almost anything for the fate of EPA and Portland’s cleanup, to be paid for by manufacturers and government entities sullying the harbor over decades. Portland has been on edge for years about the scale of the cleanup. The city, along with the state of Oregon, are among the river’s significant historical polluters and could bear hefty cost burdens.
Against looming uncertainty, however, the meeting at City Hall represents a bold, if not rogue, step ahead of the federal government. Asked Friday about the decision to move forward in a time of such flux, Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish told The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board: “The river needs cleaning up. We can and must show leadership on this. We are painfully aware of what we do not control in this discussion…. But the benefit is that we could get unstuck. We’re not just a potentially responsible party (for historical pollution), we’re the City of Portland with a river running through it.”
Richard Whitman, the newly appointed director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and in attendance at the City Hall meeting, on Friday told the editorial board that site-wide sediment sampling could begin soon to allow engineers to design dredging and capping work in some areas of concentrated pollution, advancing the solicitation of bids by cleanup contractors.
The Portland Harbor cleanup is a remedial deed whose necessity went unquestioned for more than a decade-and-a-half and which must remain unquestioned, no matter what shape Trump’s EPA may take. Republican state Sen. Don Benton of Southwest Washington, serving as Trump’s adviser on the EPA’s transition under Pruitt, told the editorial board on Friday he could not immediately know whether Portland Harbor would be affected, if at all.
Fine. Portland and Oregon can and should move ahead.
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Gov. Kate Brown had placed a line item in her proposed budget to the Legislature that shows $10 million for early cleanup actions at Portland Harbor. While that allocation still needs approval by the Legislature, it turns out to be a prescient move underscoring Oregon’s commitment to get the PCB-laden harbor, presently a human and wildlife health hazard, cleaned up.
It may seem paradoxical, but only when the Willamette is safe for recreation and fishing will the industrial harbor realize its full value as a site of commerce and integration with the broader community. Fish noted that another of his and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler’s motivations in moving forward now is to “capture the economic value” of cleanup work for the jobs and potential custom manufacturing it will create.
Rounding up those who will pay could prove tricky. A clear incentive for responsible parties to come forward – invitations will go out next week, Fish says – will be to get out from under the cloud of still-negotiable cost liability. But some might wish instead to bet against the new EPA’s resolve to insist upon the cleanup as configured and to hope that environmental responsibilities in the Trump era can slide, discounting their liabilities.
Either way, Portland and Oregon have no choice but to make a move now.
-The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board
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