By Lisa Loving of The Skanner

January, 2001

 One of the most pressing community issues facing North Portland right now—and one of the easiest to overlook—is the Superfund cleanup of Portland Harbor, in the Willamette River.

 Yet the toxic chemicals in Portland Harbor may have already caused cancer, brain damage, learning disabilities and birth defects in local families, some of whom have lived near the Superfund site for more than 50 years—particularly African American families.

 A community meeting on the Superfund cleanup, sponsored by the non-profit group Willamette Riverkeeper, is Thursday, Jan. 31 from 7-9 p.m. at the St. Johns Community Center, 8427 N. Central Ave.

 “This is an opportunity for people to help right some of the wrongs that have been done, so they can someday go over to the boat ramp and drop a line in the water,” said Travis Williams of the Willamette Riverkeeper.

 Snacks, juice and coffee are offered free at the meeting, but far more valuable is basic information about toxics in the river, how they may be hurting your family—and what you can do about it.

 The Superfund is a special program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency giving extra funds to finding, investigating and cleaning up the most polluted sites nationwide.

 Over the past 10 years, six sites in Oregon have been brought into the Superfund program, and half are either in North and Northeast Portland, or very close by.

 Both the Swan Island lagoon and the boat ramp by the St. John’s Bridge are right in the middle of the Portland Harbor “Superfund” site.

 For children, the side effects of eating chemically-contaminated fish, according to the EPA, are largely brain-related. They include lessening of “exploratory behavior,” or plain curiosity; difficulty completing complex tasks, and even decreased response to pain. Further effects are diminished ability to learn, hyperactivity, and mental disability.

 In adults, the biggest fear is cancer, but other dangers include weakened immune systems, liver damage, decreased fertility and reproduction problems.

 Educators and community activists have for years warned that a higher than average number of African American children land in special education classes, but experts are still debating whether that’s because they are not tested adequately or whether they really have higher rates of brain dysfunction.

 Many of Portland’s African American families originally moved here to work on the shipyards during World War II—at or near various spots where the highest levels of pollutants are now being recorded.

“It’s hard to gauge the long-term exposure issues, whether they were working in the shipyards in the 1940s or afterwards,” Williams said.

 The funny thing about the EPA, Williams said, is that there are some controls in place for community-based oversight and input on the Superfund process—but public groups and individuals need to know about them before they can request them.

 For example, a citizen advisory committee can be set up to participate in the cleanup process—and help in such things as choosing how to spend any monetary damage awards levied against polluters—but the EPA doesn’t automatically set up such a committee.

 “That will not happen unless people sign up for it,” Williams said. “That’s what it’s going to take—the EPA is not going to come out and say, we’re setting up a committee and do you want to come?”

 Taking the initiative and finding out more about the Superfund process is how Willamette Riverkeeper last year applied for and won a Technical Assistance Grant by the Environmental Protection Agency to set up the community’s own system of keeping tabs on the EPA’s Superfund cleanup process.

 The Riverkeepers used the money in part to hire an independent toxicologist, or pollution expert, to regularly monitor the water and the cleanup process and report back to the community.

  That toxicologist will be at the meeting Jan. 31, as will representatives from the Riverkeeper, the EPA, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and the Oregon Health Division.

  According to Williams, last year’s effort to educate local anglers about the dangers of eating their catch is just one small part of the work that needs to be done.

  “It’s not so much checking out the fish, it’s having someone in the process making sure the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control are looking at all the data they ought to be looking at and doing the right things,” he said.

Environmentalists warn that now is the time for community involvement to push the EPA to do all it can to serve the neighborhoods most hurt by cancer-causing chemicals in the river’s water, fish and even its mud.

  “There is indeed a heightened cancer risk for those eating Willamette River fish,” Williams said. Part of the EPA grant money they received has gone to regular surveys not just of the water, but of the community that uses the river.

  Williams said the surveys are turning up information about exactly who goes out fishing for food regularly, and thus who is being hurt the most by potential pollution. This is information neither the city, the state nor the federal government is collecting on their own, he said.

  “Surveys we’ve conducted of Portland Harbor show half of the people out there are fishing for sturgeon, which is not a sports fish, said Williams. “We’ve been trying to fill that information gap for the past three months, going out and asking people basic questions.”

Williams said so far this winter the Riverkeepers are marking down high levels of fecal coliform bacteria, which is found in solid waste, and can kill. It ends up in the river water because when it rains too hard the city’s out-of-date sewage system overflows.

The City of Portland just hired contractors to start installing an upgraded sewer system to keep untreated sewage out of the water, but the new system will take years to build.

  For more information about Willamette Riverkeeper, and to get a free copy of their Citizens Guide to the Willamette River Portland Harbor Cleanup, call them at 503-223-6418, or go to their Web site at Willamette-riverkeeper.org.