The Oregonian
Thursday, December 10, 1992
Posting the sewer next door
Absent a general cleanup, government should warn public about Columbia Slough pollution hazards
Low-income and refugee populations who fish and swim in the polluted Columbia River Slough are the winners in a recent tiff between Portland city officials on one side and the Black United Front and Northwest Environmental Advocates on the other.
Thanks to the private organizations, people who use the slough for recreation will at least be aware of dangers they face. Eighteen warning signs that the organizations posted along five miles of the slough in October apparently are there to stay.
They explain in English, Spanish, Russian, Khmer, Lao and Vietnamese that eating fish, drinking water or swimming in the slough can be hazardous to human health.
Why? Because the slough is an open sewer. A dozen combined sewer overflow outfalls pour a billion gallons of untreated sewage into the waterway each year. Heavy metals, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxins add to the stew.
A 1989 Portland Bureau of Environmental Services report warned against carp and clams taken from the slough. Carp, a popular food fish among Russian and Romanian immigrants, contained DDE, a toxic residue from the pesticide DDT that was banned nearly 20 years ago. Clams were contaminated with arsenic and coliform bacteria.
The state Department of Environmental Quality’s 1992 water-quality report says fish tissue from the slough is “above guidance values” for contamination with 2,3,7,8-TCDD the most deadly of 210 chemical compounds classified as dioxins.
Northwest Environmental Advocates and Black United Front, tiring of waiting for government agencies to act on such information, posted the warning signs without asking anyone’s by-your-leave.
That led to a brief confrontation in which the city Parks Bureau sawed down three signs in Kelley Point Park, the slough’s most easily accessible entry point. City versions of the three signs were quickly reposted after Commissioner Mike Lindberg seized the initiative and decided the warnings should stay. Good for him.
Both the city’s and the private signs give users of all six languages phone numbers to call for further information about pollution dangers. For those who insist on eating slough fish, the private organizations provide a pamphlet explaining cleaning and cooking methods that minimize dangers.
Ultimately, the slough and the whole lower Columbia will have to be cleaned up and restored to a semblance of their natural state. That will cost millions of dollars. But concerns about water quality in the slough have been raised for at least 18 years, and American Rivers, an environmental group, rates the Columbia-Snake river system as the most polluted in America.
Until a general cleanup begins, city, state and Port of Portland officials should take the lead in warning unwary slough users of the dangers involved. Environmental and community groups shouldn’t have to do the job for them.
