“It’s no exaggeration to say the Willamette is the lifeblood of our state, but unfortunately, we seem to have a love-hate relationship with it,” Rhett Lawrence, toxics and clean water advocate for Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group, said at the group’s second-annual State of the Willamette address Saturday afternoon, explaining that the conflict between human beings and the Willamette River has been going on since the 1800s.
Oregon State University professor Stanley Gregory said that in 1850, a forest seven miles wide flanked the river from Eugene to Portland, and
95 percent of the river ran through forests or scrubland.
Gregory said only 50 percent of the river still runs through forests, the remainder through agricultural and residential areas. Efforts to straighten the river also led to the loss of 100 miles of river channel.
Travis Williams, executive director of the nonprofit river restoration organization Willamette Riverkeeper, said restoring these lost channels is a high priority for the organization, as well as the riparian areas that, when properly vegetated, provide shade to cool the river.
Since much of the property along the river is privately owned, Williams said it is necessary to involve landowners in the process, adding that some are already willing to make property improvements.
“You’ve got to figure out how to work with these people,” Williams said. “That takes resources.”
The river’s condition improved dramatically during the 1970s after being in notoriously toxic condition since the 1930s, because of the efforts of then-Gov. Tom McCall, Gregory said.
Lane County Commissioner Peter Sorenson, a University alumnus, recalled an excursion from his student days when groups from the geography departments at the University and Oregon State University made a joint raft trip from Eugene to Corvallis.
“That was pretty memorable, to be able to raft down a river that was considered toxic only 10 years earlier,” Sorenson said.
However, the river has become polluted again. Lawrence said the river is currently designated as a federal Superfund project for a five-mile stretch in Portland.
Lawrence said while there is a system in place requiring polluters to apply for waste discharge permits, the system is inadequate because the fees the polluters pay don’t even cover the cost of issuing the permits.
Also, he said there is a backlog of expired permits, some expired for as long as five years.
“In a real sense, our taxpayer dollars are subsidizing their privilege to discharge waste into the river,” Lawrence said.
Sorenson said that since McCall left office, Oregon governors have continually filled pollution regulation committees with representatives of the industries the committees are supposed to be regulating.
“That has to stop if we’re going to be serious about cleaning up the Willamette River,” Sorenson said. “That kind of conflict of interest has to stop.”
State Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, said river pollution is visible to the naked eye at mixing zones and areas where chemicals run from a pipe into the river and mix with the river water.
He mentioned a mixing zone on the south side of the pedestrian bridge connecting to Valley River Center as particularly egregious.
“You can see the actual discoloration in the river, … and sometimes the odor is overwhelming,” Prozanski said.
Prozanski said the Senate is working on a bill, Senate Bill 555, that will require toxic substances discharged at mixing zones.
“Individuals will know exactly firsthand what is being discharged into the river,” Prozanski said.
Sorenson said industries claim the Senate Democrats’ attempts to phase out mixing zones will lead to financial disaster.
“That, to me, is an excuse,” Sorenson said. “It’s not the time for wait and see, it’s the time for action.”

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