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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2022
Jamie Hale/The Oregonian
Kayakers paddle up the Willamette River toward Willamette Falls in Oregon City, seen from the old Blue Heron paper mill site, now owned by the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.
Willamette Falls riverwalk project on hold
Grand Ronde tribe leaves partnership
By JAMIE HALE
The Oregonian
Anyone hoping for a new public riverwalk to Willamette
Falls in Oregon City will need to hold out hope for a little —
or maybe a lot — longer.
Despite roughly a decade of work and nearly $40 mil-
lion of public funding that resulted in eye-catching render-
ings once displayed proudly at public events, the Willa-
mette Falls Legacy Project has yet to break ground on the
much-anticipated riverwalk that would fi nally give the pub-
lic a close-up view of Willamette Falls.
The long-awaited project at the old Blue Heron paper
mill site remains on hold indefi nitely, as partners work to
reorganize the structure of the intergovernmental collabora-
tion, which has comprised as many as nine local, state and
tribal government entities.
Earlier this month, the partnership received a blow when
the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde announced it was
leaving the Willamette Falls Legacy Project because of
bureaucratic gridlock. The tribe owns the property where
the public riverwalk will be built using an easement, and
is working on a multiphase development that will include a
separate cultural and community center of its own at the site.
“For nearly 10 years, we have watched as little prog-
ress at Willamette Falls occurred while signifi cant public
resources have been spent,” Cheryle Kennedy, tribal coun-
cil chairwoman for the Grand Ronde tribe, wrote in a letter
to Willamette Falls Legacy Project partners on March 17.
“As a result, and after careful consideration, the Confed-
erated Tribes of Grand Ronde will no longer participate in
discussions around the Willamette Falls Legacy Project.”
Sara Thompson, spokesperson for the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde, confi rmed the tribe will continue to
work with local government agencies on the various proj-
ects at Willamette Falls — just not as a part of the Willa-
mette Falls Legacy Project.
“Grand Ronde has always collaborated closely with
local, state and federal agencies engaged in projects within
its ceded lands,” Thompson wrote in an email. “This move
does not change that commitment.”
The remaining partners, which include Oregon City,
Clackamas County, Metro and the state, as well as the Con-
federated Tribes of Siletz Indians, Confederated Tribes of
the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of
Warm Springs, and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of
the Yakama Nation, have said they plan to continue work on
the riverwalk — though details for that plan remain elusive.
Organizing multiple government agencies and sover-
eign nations on a large-scale public works project is hard
enough, let alone doing so at a site of great cultural impor-
tance that touches on simmering intertribal confl ict. The
Willamette Falls Legacy Project partners expressed confi -
dence that the riverwalk will eventually be complete, but
the current roadblocks are hard to ignore.
Clackamas County Commissioner Martha Schrader,
who has been working with the partnership, said despite
the setbacks she’s optimistic about the future of the Wil-
lamette Falls Legacy Project. She said her two decades of
experience in local government have shown that complex
projects take time and usually endure complications along
the way.
“It is not out of the ordinary to see these kinds of blips
happen. You take 10 steps forward and fi ve back,” she said.
“I think of this not in terms of one or two years, I think of
this in terms of fi ve, 10, 15 years — 20 years.”
Schrader said while she remains confi dent about the
future of the riverwalk, the partners need to address the
complications that have the project stuck on hold – namely
the partnership itself.
2021
The Oregonian
An aerial view of Willamette Falls and the former Blue Heron paper mill.
Yuxing Zheng, a spokesperson for Metro, said the
agency is working through some challenging questions
about the project’s governance following the departure of
the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. Metro’s involve-
ment has hinged upon collaboration with all fi ve tribes, she
said.
“It’s really important that we try to get the approach
right,” Zheng said.
Kristin Brown, communications coordinator for Oregon
City, said any decisions about the project will be unani-
mous, and that the partners hope to sort out the lingering
organizational issues at the next meeting — though no date
for that meeting has been set.
“Listening to what all our partners have to say is very
important,” Brown said. “So it’s paramount that everybody
get in the room together.”
The Willamette Falls Legacy Project had fi nalized plans
for the riverwalk before the Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde purchased the land in 2019 for $15.25 million from
Washington developer George Heidgerken, who had also
been working with the partnership on redeveloping the site.
After the land changed hands, the riverwalk was rede-
signed to jibe with Grand Ronde’s new vision for the old
Blue Heron site, and at the start of 2021, the partners agreed
on a new plan. That summer, however, the project was put
on hold as the Willamette Falls Legacy Project added all
fi ve tribes to the partnership, following a request from the
Willamette Falls Trust, a nonprofi t that has raised private
money for the riverwalk and promotes intertribal collabo-
ration to complete it.
All fi ve tribes cite ancestral connections to Willamette
Falls, and therefore have a vested interest in the site, they
say, though the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde is the
only tribe that owns property at the falls.
In their recent announcement to leave the partnership,
the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde complained that
the addition of the other tribes led to prolonged gridlock,
slowing down the project while “not yielding any benefi ts
to the public.”
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Robert Kentta, Willamette Falls Trust board chair and coun-
cilman for the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians, issued
a letter hours later in response to Grand Ronde’s announce-
ment, arguing for the importance of inter-tribal collaboration.
“The inclusion of all tribes with deep spiritual, historical,
cultural and legal connections to (the) Falls is an import-
ant step for this project and should be a common practice at
this place,” Kentta wrote. “As with any multi-government
collaboration, there have been challenges, yet participation
in these conversations is key to success and healing.”
Both letters prodded old wounds between the tribes
involved, though neither addressed the confl ict directly.
The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde has long asserted
that it has ancestral rights to control access at Willamette
Falls, a claim the other four tribes contest. Regardless,
Grand Ronde maintains greater control of the site as own-
ers of the land adjacent to the Oregon City side of falls.
Following its departure from the Willamette Falls Leg-
acy Project, Grand Ronde said it maintains an open-door
policy when it comes to working with other governments,
including tribal governments, but stopped short of commit-
ting to a full intertribal collaboration at Willamette Falls.
Development of the Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde’s planned cultural and community center at Willa-
mette Falls, which could include restaurants, lodging and
viewpoints, is coming along, though much work remains
between the demolition of old mill buildings and the con-
struction of new ones, the tribe said.
Meanwhile, the Willamette Falls Legacy Project
remains on hold, as partners try to fi gure out how to pro-
ceed with what has proven to be an enormously complex
undertaking.
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