In December 2000, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) placed the Portland Harbor on its National Priorities List (NPL) of cleanup sites. Portland Harbor is the section of the Willamette River that extends six miles from Willamette Falls to the South to Swan Island in the North. These NPL sites are commonly known as Superfund sites, designating them as the country's most polluted sites in the country. Oregon Health Division and the federal Environmental Protection Agency have identified unsafe levels of heavy metals including mercury, PCBs, dioxins, DDT and a host of other pesticides and herbicides. Many of the substances found in the Harbor are known to be harmful to people and animals, especially those who live in and use the harbor area.

Corporations that have historically discharged toxic waste into the Willamette are also coming under scrutiny. These companies, known as Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs), are responsible for the costs of cleanup. The EPA first identified 69 PRPs in December of 2000 and then added an additional 11 in May of 2006. If there are costs that are not recovered from the companies, then costs are passed on to the taxpayer through Environmental Protection Agency superfund allocations. The Center will be working with the EPA, Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality and the identified companies to ensure that those responsible pay their fair share and that further discharges that re-contaminate the river are reduced and eliminated. To date, fourteen companies have come to the table and are funding studies of the harbor to determine the extent and type of contamination and to design a clean-up plan. The group is known as the Lower Willamette Group (LWG) and is headed by the Port of Portland.

The Lower Willamette Group is charged, under an agreement with EPA, with developing a Work Plan and a Sampling Plan for clean up of the harbor. The Programmatic Work Plan provides a roadmap for the project through successful completion of the Remedial Investigation and the Feasibility Study. The Field Sampling Plan describes specifically how and where the samples will be collected to meet the objectives of the Work Plan. Read the EPA's formal comments on the Lower Willamette Group's Work Plan and Field Sampling Plan and the LWG response to the comments.

The Center serves as a public interest watchdog. For the past four years we have worked to organize and educate the public. In 2002 we helped EPA organize the Portland Harbor Community Advisory Group (CAG). This group of citizens and environmental and public health advocates meets monthly to review every aspect of the clean up. The Center chairs the Technical Advisory Committee and reports back to the CAG on issues related to both the larger clean up and the smaller early action clean ups.

When necessary, the Center takes an independent and often critical approach to monitoring the clean up. We issue public comments, commission our own engineering studies and analysis, and work with the media to make the public aware of problems associated with the clean up.

One of our greatest concerns is the way in which cost is driving the process. For example, despite overwhelming opposition to Northwest Natural’s least-cost plan for cleaning up a massive tar body at the old refining site known as Gasco, the EPA approved the plan. As a result, the clean up went very badly with acute exceedances for water quality standards resulting in releases of highly toxic material further down river. Please refer to the latest news articles for further details.