Street Roots • July 1-7, 2016
Commentary
PROMISES, fro m page 10
session, Commissioner Steve Novick
repeatedly interrupted a prepared update from
EPA project manager Cami Grandinetti, first
demanding to know how many lives would be
saved by a river clean-up, then insisting that
money spent on the river would have to be
taken away from the homeless or from bike
infrastructure. Backed with similar messages
from Commissioner Nick Fish, who oversees
the Bureau of Environmental Services, the
message was clear: City Council was not
interested in a thorough clean-up.
Chloe Eudaly, who is challenging Novick for
his seat this November, says she is
disappointed with the EPA’s clean-up plan,
calling it “a gift to the responsible parties.”
“I’d like the polluters to sit down for the
rest of this discussion so that we can hear
from the community, especially from
environmental advocates and marginalized
groups, who are disproportionately at risk due
to proximity to and use of the river, from
environmental advocates and experts, and
most importantly from the various
Confederated Tribes whose health, way of life,
and treaty rights continue to be threatened by
the use and abuse of the Willamette River.”
The Portland Harbor Community Coalition,
whose member groups span homeless
advocates, communities of color and Native
organizations, said that a complete clean-up of
the river would provide good jobs to local
residents while putting our local economy on a
path towards genuine sustainability.
But getting to those jobs means Confronting
the jobs that keep the river polluted. The
Lower Willamette Group boasts on its website
that “100,000 jobs are dependent on the
economic activity in the harbor area.”
“The Lower Willamette Group only exists to
fulfill our orders with EPA for the remedial
investigation feasibility study,” said Barbara
Smith, the LWG spokesperson. “The members
only came together for that purpose of the
superfund study.”
When asked whether the LWG recognized
any obligations to the river or its other users,
Smith insisted that they do, saying “That’s
why they stepped up ... to work with EPA on
the scientific studies - because they know that
the Willamette is an important resource for
the public, for recreation, for commerce, for
jobs.”
“The goal of Superfund’’ she contends, “is
not to eliminate contamination - it’s to reduce
risks to human and environmental health. So
the goal is not to remove every chemical.”
When informed that the levels of pollution
deemed acceptable by the Lower Willamette
Group are currently being described by the
Yakama Nation as a violation of their treaty,
civil and human rights, Smith responded “I
can’t respond to that.”
Since the major breakthroughs of fishing
rights litigation in the 1970s, the Pacific
Northwest has seen a series of successful
lawsuits that uphold treaty obligations.
Since the fight for fishing access has largely
been won, treaty litigation has increasingly
taken the form of complex settlements to
restore habitat through large-scale actions
such as dam removal. An aggressive clean-up
of the Portland Harbor seems to be very much
in line with that trend.
Longoria said that about 5 years ago the
Yakama Nation undertook a survey of toxic
threats to the Columbia River. They started by
identifying all hazardous waste sites in the
Columbia Basin, which located a total of
114,000 in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
They then narrowed their search to sites
with serious impacts to the main-stem
Columbia River and its major tributaries,
focusing attention on sites within a half-mile
from of the Columbia riverbanks. This
produced a list of 766 hazardous material
sites. Narrowing down even further to those
sites that were the most critical for marine
habitat they had a list of 68 priority sites, and
of all these sites, the Willamette Harbor was
one of the largest they encountered.
Longoria asked EPA officials at their first
public hearing when they would consider their
remedy complete under the current draft plan,
as the superfund law (CERCLA) prevents legal
challenges until the clean-up option is
Did you serve in the
Page 11
complete. No EPA official at the meeting
would provide an answer, but Longoria’s staff
has estimated it will take 30 years. In that
amount of time, it’s totally unknown how many
of the 150 responsible parties will remain
financially solvent And as the Port of Portland
itself has observed, “Sometimes companies
that caused contamination are no longer in
existence. When a historical PRP (potentially
responsible party) business leaves no funds to
pay for cleanup, the remaining PRPs must
assume those costs.”
Given the treaty obligations in play, the
injustice of delayed action, and the fact that
the splitting of costs among PRPs can only
become less fair over time, it would be an
immense benefit for all parties to engage in an
immediate full-scale clean-up.
Rose Longoria said that the Yakama Nation
is hoping for that exact outcome when she
travels next month to the nation’s capital for a
meeting with EPA Administrator, Gina
McCarthy.
“On July 25 we are asking for Gina
McCarthy’s leadership in honoring our treaty
rights by implementing an aggressive cleanup
of the Portland Harbor Superfund site that
leads to clean, healthy fish that are safe for
our people to eat. Our message to Gina
McCarthy is this: Over a century and a half
ago, Yakama leaders were assured that their
ability to take fish from our usual and
accustomed areas including the Willamette
would continue ‘as long as the grass grows
and the river flows.’ This promise implied that
the fish would be safe to eat and free from
toxins and poisons.”
“The Indians did not understand the
treaties to promise that they would have
access to their usual and accustomed fishing
places, but with a qualification that would
allow the government to diminish or destroy
the fish runs,” wrote Judge William Fletcher in
a June 27 appeals court ruling that affirms
tribal fishing rights. (Washington territory)
Governor Isaac Stevens, Fletcher writes, “did
not make ... such a cynical and disingenuous
promise.”
n p & n l e ’«
WEDNESDAYS 2-7PM
Armed Forces
or at
risk
FARMERS’ MARKET
of
becoming
homeless?
EBT CARD
Transition
Projects
Please call 855.425.5544
or visit 650 NW Irving Street
I
ir community
. By shopping
dollars while
supporting local farmers and community,
t
3029 SE 21st Ave. btwn Powell & Division
M issed an issue? You can always catch up on Street Roots coverage a nd commentary a t streetroots.org.