Take Action: Keep Portland’s Superfund Out of the Gorge

Tell Governor Kotek: Oregon needs a better solution — one that cleans up the Portland Harbor Superfund without shipping it through and dumping it in the Columbia River Gorge.

Use the action tool below to urge state leaders to pursue a cleanup plan that protects the Willamette River, the Columbia River Gorge, our climate, and the communities along the route.

Use the action tool below to tell your elected officials: keep the Superfund out of the Columbia River Gorge.

Don’t Turn the Gorge Into a Superfund Pipeline

The Columbia River Gorge is a national scenic treasure — not a disposal route for Portland’s Superfund waste.

As part of the Portland Harbor Superfund cleanup, EPA is considering plans that could move roughly 5 million tons of contaminated Willamette River sediment through the Columbia Gorge to landfill sites in Wasco and Gilliam counties.

According to EPA estimates, that could mean some combination of:

• 2,000 barge loads on the Columbia River
• 50,000 railcar loads through Gorge communities
• 200,000 diesel truckloads on I-84 and regional roads

For Columbia Gorge communities, this means years of heavy barge traffic, rail traffic, and/or diesel truck traffic moving through one of Oregon’s most iconic landscapes. That activity is estimated to generate up to 70,000 tons of carbon pollution, add diesel emissions to communities along the route, increase traffic and safety risks, and shift the burden of Portland’s cleanup onto the Gorge.

Gorge communities have stood up before to stop the Columbia River Gorge from being transformed from a National Scenic Area into a fossil fuel corridor. We should not allow it to become a pipeline for Superfund sediment either.

We support cleaning up the Willamette River. But Portland should not use the Columbia Gorge as a disposal chute for its Superfund problem.