Page 4
January 17, 2018
River Keepers
C ontinueD from P age 3
this is by and large not a good
sampling contract,” said Cassie
Cohen, executive director of the
Portland Harbor Community Co-
alition. “It’s a sampling contract
that benefits the polluters more
than it benefits the health of the
river, or the health of the people.”
The advocacy group’s mission
is to keep the clean-up efforts on
track and to make sure the work
benefits the community. Members
are especially concerned about
impacts on people who rely on the
river for sustenance and the dis-
proportionate impact of exposure
to toxins in local African Ameri-
can, Native American and immi-
grant communities.
A group of companies with
historical ties to steel making,
chemical manufacturing, and iron
works, identified as Schnitzer,
Evraz, Arkema and the Marine
Group were identified in EPA
documents as the parties who ne-
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gotiated with the agency to create
the sampling plan.
Members of the coalition said
the same companies met with
EPA officials in secret earlier this
year to try and delay clean-up ef-
forts another 5 or 10 years. Their
participation was only made pub-
lic with the release of the sam-
pling plan.
“The sampling plan that’s
emerged is problematic. We are
definitely concerned that these
four polluters were able to signifi-
cantly weaken what we’d expect-
ed to see in the sampling plan,”
said Bob Sallinger, a member of
pling plan was made without
a public review process and
“speaks to the lack of transpar-
ency” of the federal agency. No
explanation was given as to why
those four industries were chosen
in the negotiations out of the over
150 private and public organi-
zations identified as responsible
polluting parties, including Port
of Portland, Chevron U.S.A.,
Inc., Phillips 66 Company and
the Union Pacific Railroad.
“Ultimately it’s, you know,
it’s the health of the river and
the health of our community that
was undermined by this process,”
“By cooperating with the state,
tribal nations, other federal part-
ners and the responsible parties,
we will keep the cleanup mov-
ing toward our shared goals of
reducing risks to people and the
environment, and returning the
Lower Willamette to a healthier
and more vital working waterway
for all,” EPA administrator Scott
Pruitt said.
In addition to small mouth
bass tissue, the sample plan will
test river sediment and surface
water for contaminants such as
polychlorinated biphenyls, a can-
cerous chemical that also causes
Bottom line is we think that this is by and
large not a good sampling contract. It’s a
sampling contract that benefits the polluters
more than it benefits the health of the river,
or the health of the people.
— Cassie Cohen, executive director of the Portland Harbor Community Coalition
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the coalition and the conservation
director for the Portland Audubon
Society.
According to Sallinger, more
extensive testing is the best way
to evaluate future risks to the
community and provide the in-
formation necessary to determine
“whether the cleanup reaches its
goals or not. And so this is a pret-
ty important piece of the puzzle,”
he told the Portland Observer.
“There needs to be addition-
al data collected and we’re go-
ing to be pressing EPA to identi-
fy the party for collecting those
important remaining data,” the
DEQ’s Kevin Parrett said, echo-
ing Sallinger’s point.
Sallinger said the new sam-
Sallinger said.
The sampling plan comes a
year after the EPA made a Final
Record of Decision for the Super-
fund Site, an official plan to get
the river cleaned up. Since then,
the Trump Administration has
proposed budget cuts to the EPA
as well as mass buyouts in the
agency. The agency lost over 700
employees, including 200 scien-
tists last year.
But in early December the EPA
announced the Superfund Site as
one of 21 sites it plans to target
for “intense and immediate ac-
tion” across the country. And EPA
has stated that it is committed to
sticking with clean up plans laid
out in the record of decision.
reproductive issues. The toxins
have accumulated in the river
over the better part of a centu-
ry from industrial lumber mills,
shipyards, and chemical manu-
facturing.
Sallinger holds on to hope
that there may be opportunities
to remedy the deficiencies in the
EPA’s sampling plan as negoti-
ations with responsible parties
continue to unfold over the next
several years.
“What we hope to see going
forward is a lot more transpar-
ency and we hope that the EPA
will come back and realize that
the [wildlife] sampling that was
omitted needs to be restored,” he
said.