“Cruise Discovers ‘Lost’ Canal” By Don Holm, Sunday Oregonian, May 9, 1971

“Come along I want to show you something.” Said Jim Bigelow. So you launch the boat under the St. Johns Bridge and run down the Willamette along the new docks and terminals, past the new Rivergate development, and just about the time you are making the buoy at Kelly’s Point, he says, “Turn in here.”

It looks like a little bay or inlet, and there is a cruiser anchored there salmon fishing.It is, however, the opening of another waterway. It is, in fact, the outlet of Columbia Slough.

Are you kidding? You ask Jim.You want to cruise up this sewer?

Columbia Slough once started out near Troutdale and meandered along the Columbia floodplain, past the airport, through the St. Johns Peninsula, past Smith, Bybee, and Ramsey lakes, and joined the confluence with the big river.

During the 1948 flood, it was plugged by a dike in the vicinity of Columbia Edgewater Country Club, which didn’t help Vanport any, and ever since has been a forgotten, eight-mile long dead-end slough what everyone just assumed was a cesspool for the slaughter houses, chemical plants, pulpmill and sawmill operations along its banks.

Politicians want freeway

Well, said Jim Bigelow, I have been on the banks of this so-called “sewer” for the past 30 years, and I want to show you what it is and what the politicians would like to do to it.

Columbia Slough at this point appeared to be merely a winding waterway, bolstered on both sides by high grassy banks, clumps of cottonwood, black ash, alder, willow, and vine maple.Wild flowers in little squads here and there stood at attention and waved in the breeze as we cruised past.We bucked a slight current as the tide began ebbing.

You know what they want to do?Jim said, then answered his own question.The county and the Port of Portland want to fill in this waterway with dirt and then pave it over and build a freeway.How about that?

Why would they want to do a thing like that?

Politics, said Jim.

A salmon rolled in the wake.Look at that, said Jim.Salmon, steelhead, all kinds of fish come up in here.Until recently you’d see 50 to 100 people fishing along the banks here every day- until the county posted signs warning people that the Slough was polluted.

Polluted! Why, exploded Jim, we had a marine biologist out here testing the water and he found it just as clean as the Willamette.He also testified at a public hearing that there were at least eight different species of food fish in this waterway. On any given day, at least 500 pounds of fish from this so-called polluted waterway find a way to the dinner tables of people living in Portland.

We swung around an “S” bend, leaving a nice clean wake curling up behind the boat and waved to an angler parked on the bank with his pole in the water, and a lunch and bottle of coffee beside him, having a quiet day’s outing- in spite of the county’s warning signs.

The further up we went, the more placid and serene the Slough appeared. Here and there a cow peered over the bank through the bank through the tall grass to see what the disturbance going by was.We moved a raft of mallards ahead of us, and at one point an echelon of three drakes flew alongside the boat for about a quarter mile so close you could almost touch them. A red-tailed hawk wheeled overhead, above a clump of cottonwood, and pretty soon a smaller bird dive-bombed the hawk and chased him around the sky.The morning sun cast long shadows across the mirrored surface ahead of us.

Presently we came to the first sign of pollution a carbide plant dumping a vile looking greenish-gray solution into the Slough, which had burned the banks for a width of about a 100 feet and left a dead swath down to the water’s edge.The effluent leeched out into the water and discolored it for about a block downstream.

Garbage dumped

This plant and a meat packing plant up further that dumped its sewer into the waterway were the only two polluters at present, said Jim. We came upon one other presently, however. Someone was dumping garbage over the bank, but the bank was too high to see where it came from.

All over the world, Jim tells you, people are crying for more facilities. In other states, promoters spend millions of dollars digging canals just to create waterways.Here the politicians want to fill it in and pave it, when we have one of the finest natural potential waterways in the region, and a real need for it.

Think of what Portland could do with this Slough, just by unplugging the dike at the Columbia near the golf course!For five cents a yard you could dredge it out for about $75,000 and let the Columbia flow into the upper end, the way it used to do naturally. Boaters would then have a short cut between the Willamette and Columbia.The fishing would improve tenfold.The fresh intake from the big river would flush out the Slough and help keep the channel clear at the mouth of the Willamette, the way it used to without dredging.Columbia Slough used to have a sort of venture action that kept the Willamette’s mouth from silting up.Now thousands of dollars are spent to keep it dredged.

Moorage critical item

Think of the new moorage space the Slough would create (and moorage is a critical item in the metro area and getting worse every year). You could have all sorts of water sports, even a water parade during Rose Festival week.You could build hiking or bicycle paths along the banks, have wildlife galore-a beautiful, natural parkway eight miles long.

Ecology is the big deal now, Jim went on.Everybody is ecology happy-especially the politicians. Well, here is a chance for everyone to get on the band wagon and do something constructive and positive instead of talking about it.

We skimmed along, winding around the bends, scarcely aware that we actually were moving through an industrial district.There was no observable smoke and no noise, not even when we passed under the railroad and freeway bridges.

Why, said Jim, one property owner up ahead here even offered to move the dike himself at his own expense and build a marina with finger piers if only save the Slough and unplug it.

Deserted, forgotten

We passed the old pilings of a couple of long-gone sawmills, left over from the old days when the Slough was a vital waterway for barges and ship traffic.We passed an old shipyard where they used to build tugboats, and an abandoned wannigan or two. Otherwise the Slough was now almost totally deserted-and forgotten.

We sailed under busy Interstate, under the Minnesota Freeway, and under Union Avenue and would never have realized it if we hadn’t known. Then we came to a sharp bend where the Sough used to continue on east, and where it now turned the corner to meet the Columbia and came up against the plug filled in for flood control in 1948.

In the old days, during the 1940s and 1950s the yachting traffic through here was terrific.It could be that way again, said Jim.

So you turn the boat around and sail back down this eight-mile long forgotten waterway that could be reclaimed and rehabilitated for a measly five cents a yard and a little foresight.

Instead, said Jim, Portland citizens could lose another potentially priceless waterway and recreational asset.

Multnomah County Drainage District No 1
10319 NE Marx St
Portland, Oregon 97220
The Oregonian
1320 SW Broadway
Portland, Oregon 97201

Attention: Mr. J. Richard Nokes, Managing Editor

Your article in the Sunday, May 9, 1971, Oregonian Cruise discover Lost Canal has been most effective. There were more than one hundred boats of all sizes and speed ranges that came to see the lost canal the same day the article appeared.

The erosion caused to the bare banks of the levee by these speeders and cutups is uncalled for.The banks would have to be protected with riprap to withstand the wave action of boaters, if they are going to be allowed to use the waterway. At the present time, the land is dependent on the levees.

Perhaps Jim Bigelow did not know that the plug in the canal was placed there to relieve three miles of levee that had extensive seepage and boils in the area of the homes south of Columbia Edgewater Country Club.

This channel never flowed with any velocity to the Willamette because the levels of the Willamette and the Columbia stay the same. This channel was blocked each year by silt deposited by high water and had to be removed to maintain the outlet. This was never done for five cents an yard.

The politicians mentioned in the article know nothing about this plug.The comprehensive study was made by the Health Department, City of Portland, and the Multnomah County Drainage District.The study found that, by placing the plug, water from the Multnomah County Drainage District helped flush the canal.

The canal will not be changed. It will function as it is now, but, with control structures, will be closed to navigation and will relieve the existing levees.

Very truly yours,

MULTNOMAH COUNTY DRAINAGE DISTRICT NO. 1
Leo F White, Manager

Copies sent to:

Board of Multnomah County Commissioners
Portland City Council
Port of Portland