Kirk & Chelsea
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Photo credit: Allison Frost/OPB
The need for increased community engagement in the Portland Harbor Superfund project seems to me a central issue. In comparing the Duwamish and Portland Harbor, there seems a significant difference in the levels of engagement between the two cities’ governing bodies and the communities most affected by the Superfund and the clean up process. Admittedly, the vantage point I gained on the Lower Duwamish River project was more in retrospect and is perhaps not a fair comparison with Portland Harbor. However, I believe Portland can learn from the mistakes and successes in Seattle. The communities from the neighborhoods of South Park and Georgetown and the Duwamish Tribe were driving forces insisting on more and better engagement with the City and Port of Seattle as well as the EPA. And most importantly, those communities pushed for better clean up technologies and it seems they helped the City and Port of Seattle recognize how essential it is to use technologies that remove more of the contaminants. The City of Portland recently conducted a survey of Portland residents on their priorities and opinions about the Portland Harbor cleanup. This was the first outreach by the City on the clean up and was not widely distributed, nor was it comprehensive in eliciting the full views of the public with its limited questions and “pick a box” format. I spoke with Delia Mendoza and Lucia Llano of the Portland Harbor Community Coalition last week, who both echoed Paulina Lopez from South Park about the need for community meetings with food and childcare provided and be culturally appropriate to successfully engage the various affected communities. We have heard from communities surrounding both the Lower Duwamish River and the Portland Harbor that being able to safely eat fish from these rivers are of utmost priority to them. The priorities for the City and Port understandably revolve around cost. It’s time to learn from the Duwamish and other Superfund clean up projects that while more expensive technologies that remove more contamination seem prohibitive from a cost analysis, lingering contamination or contamination that is spread from improper dredging or damaged caps are not worth the recontamination of our river, fish, and people. -Lola Goldberg Photo by Lola Goldberg
We had the opportunity to visit with representatives from many of the groups involved in the Lower Duwamish River Superfund site. The Duwamish river has a similar history to that of the Willamette--for thousands of years it was central to the lives of the native peoples of these lands--in this case the Duwamish tribe who spent their winters along its banks. The Duwamish people subsistence fished the river and travelled by canoe along its meandering course. After Chief Seattle of the Duwamish signed the treaty of 1855 allowing the City of Seattle to be built on their homeland, the river was straightened, deepened, and industrialized. The Duwamish river became a transportation hub for large ships and over the past century, a waste tank for wartime industry and rapid development that grew up around it. We visited the Duwamish Longhouse--a beautiful community center for the tribe to share their culture and history. The Duwamish tribe has been asserting their place in this landscape, having lived here for at least 12,000 years, according to Linda Dombrowski, the event coordinator who shared many tales of Duwamish history and of the river just across the street. Although the Duwamish community has their own visions for the river, they are willing to share the water and the land that contains it with their industrial neighbors. This surprised me. They only expect that the river be cleaned up so that all people’s needs for the river are possible, including fishing for subsistence. It’s not an easy task, but some assert it’s possible. We met B.J. Cummings, the founding coordinator of the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition (DRCC) in 2001, to empower residents of South Park and Georgetown--the neighborhoods within the industrial sea along the Duwamish river. B.J. is a wealth of knowledge. She explained that Lake Washington was formerly the site of the City’s sewage dump, but after the affluent and largely white neighborhoods surrounding the lake complained, the City rerouted the sewage system to dump into the lower Duwamish river. Many communities have come together as very active agents influencing the process and plan for cleanup of the the superfund site. When we met with employees of the City of Seattle, the Port of Seattle, and the Environmental Protection Agency, they credited the DRCC and expressed gratitude for their persistent involvement pushing for stronger cleanup outcomes. Boeing, apparently did very well cleaning up their early action areas, using sophisticated technology to dredge contaminated river sediment without causing a spread of the contaminants. Using Boeing’s good example as well as documenting when dredging was poorly done for far less money, the DRCC continues to push for better cleanup methods. While communities of South Park have been highly vocal and active influencing stronger river cleanup, these low income communities--often communities of color--have not gotten the level of response that communities around Lake Washington received. Politics that govern cities have systematically left low income communities out of planning processes and adequate consideration. In “A Ladder of Citizen Participation,” Arnstein articulates the reason for citizen participation in processes affecting our public commons as a redistribution of power- giving voice to people so often excluded from the process (Arnstein 1969). This article was published in 1969 and yet still today citizen participation is often a box for government officials to check rather than fully listening and changing plans or designs based on feedback from the public- people who will be greatly affected by the decisions made. Furthermore, government rarely does outreach to underrepresented communities. Because of the strong and determined involvement by the DRCC and people of South Park, this dynamic may be slowly shifting for Seattle, however there is still a long way to go. -Lola Goldberg Sherry R. Arnstein (1969) A Ladder Of Citizen Participation, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35:4, 216-224, DOI: 10.1080/01944366908977225 Of all of the interesting perspectives that were voiced and all that I saw and learned, one part of our trip to Seattle stood out to me: just how industrial the Duwamish River is. Compared to the Willamette River in Portland, the Duwamish seemed much more like an “economic engine.” The amount of industry on the Duwamish and its importance to the city, makes the conversation about the Superfund site different than the one being had in Portland. In Seattle all parties accept that the river will continue to be primarily for industrial use, and that all other uses will be secondary. B.J. Cummings and the representative from the Duwamish Tribe both acknowledged this on our trip.
In class we discussed the role of nature in our largely urban society. In Seattle the citizen’s access to the Duwamish as a natural feature is not as much of a possibility as it is on the Willamette. In Portland it is less clear what the primary functions of the river will be into the future. With the Superfund cleanup in Portland we have the option of increasing the relatively small amount of industry on the river. We also have the opportunity to possibly make it a natural retreat in the heart of our city. A place to be in “nature” and to benefit from it as a food source as well. From all of the readings on the cleanup that we have explored thus far in the course it appears likely that the end result of the cleanup will be a mix of these. The Duwamish cleanup in Seattle holds many lessons for us here in Portland, but it is remarkably different in this way. It will be fascinating to see how industry and nature are balanced in the final plan of the cleanup and how it is brought into reality. Kirk At the Port of Portland I was primarily interested in understanding what type of entity the Port is. It was hard for me to grasp at first whether it was a geographical area, a governmental agency, or something entirely different. By asking several of our guides I feel like I now have a better idea of what the Port of Portland does. I am still curious about how they are beholden to the community. The Port is a semi-public entity, but people (myself included) know very little about it or how we can influence it. As described in the “Local Knowledge in Environmental Health Policy” chapter, combining technical expertise with local knowledge is extremely powerful. It is also difficult, and for entities like the Port of Portland in this situation, it requires work and a level of humility. To do successful outreach they will need to fully accept that they do not have all of the answers. If done right, true partnerships must be forged; a message this chapter conveys throughout. Arnstein in her “Ladder of Citizen Participation” shows that the partnership must be established in a timely manner, at a point in the process where the public’s contribution can be effective. The ideal (top rung) would be the communities affected by the river cleanup process would be in complete control of the process with support from the Port. There is however, a major hangup embedded in this ideal as it applies to this and other situations. It requires those with power to relinquish some of that power to the disenfranchised. To claim they have adequately involved the public in this process the Port must: involve the public at the right time, show a willingness to share power, and eventually ride shotgun, not drive. A set of lengthy podcasts buried on their website will not suffice as public involvement. Kirk Arnstein, S. (1969). A Ladder Of Citizen Participation, Journal of the American Institute of Planners. 35:4, 216-224. Corburn, J. (2005). Street Science, Local Knowledge in Environmental Health Policy The OBP article titled: Cleaning Up Toxic Contaminants in the Willamette River was more background on the issues of the Willamette and the clean up process, including the central questions, “what should the clean up entail, and who should pay for it?” Various involved parties discuss their beliefs on the plans, and engage with the community as we await the EPA’s National Review Board to review the plans. I think one of the major concerns is that concept of clean and what to trust is clean enough, and who is setting that standard. The EPA comments to the Lower Willamette Group, “statements regarding population...should not be designed to protect organisms on an individual basis...but to protect local populations and communities of biota,”(EPA 3:2009) further confuse the concept of what denotes clean especially if humans depend on the environment and vice versa. Decisions on how to clean up of the Willamette River seem to have to unravel and define many concepts.
The known history of legacy contamination, and the exact types of chemicals in the sediments are considered in the various types of cleanup. Another central debate occurring is the amount of clean necessary to reduce risk to both humans and the environment, “ there are clear criteria we have to achieve to actually protect human health and the environment. And so there, our goals are based on targets that reduce it to a certain level that we deem to be acceptable.” (Frost 2015) But reading about the EPA’s chemical regulation last week how “tests are typically conducted or funded by a pesticide's manufacturer.” (Boone et al. 917:2014), there seems to be a conflict of interest in what these chemicals actually do outside of the laboratory; the EPA has concerns that the Lower Willamette River Group (LWG) dismissed the chemicals of concern from evidence in the risk characterization sections of BERA. It seems like there is already a lot of mistrust and over complication in the complex decision containing many variables on how to approach the cleanup which can be a dividing process and a process that forces people to look at their values. -Katie Boone, M. et al . 2014 Pesticide Regulation amid the Influence of Industry. BioScience, 64, 917-922. doi:10.1093/biosci/biu138 EPA 2009 Preliminary EPA Comments on the Baseline Human Health and Ecological Risk Assessments 1-13. Frost, A. 2015 Cleaning Up Toxic Contaminants In The Willamette River. OPB. Retrieved from http://www.opb.org/news/article/cleaning-up-toxic-contaminants-in-the-willamette-river/ I lived my earliest years just up the hill from Swan Creek, outside Summertown, Tennessee. The young, long-haired, back-to-the-land community I grew up in valued connected relationships with the forested hills we inhabited. I can remember as early as four-years-old, learning to swim in the swimming hole the community had dug out. When a cottonmouth snake was spotted on the water, everyone quickly evacuated until it moved safely downstream. Venomous cottonmouths liked our swimming hole too and the cliff jutting up from it. I was fascinated by their smooth snaky glide across the water’s surface and learned to revere wildlife.
A few years later, my family started backpacking together and I learned to be careful and highly conscious of keeping the rivers we camped along clean by peeing at least 200 feet away from them, digging proper poop holes at least six inches into the earth to sufficiently bury my body’s waste, and using just a drop or two of biodegradable peppermint soap to wash up, but away from the river or stream. I learned that bodies of water were no place for waste of any kind. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s with this awareness, I felt confused in grammar school when I learned that many large rivers were used to dispose of industrial waste. I remember learning that the Willamette River is one of the more polluted rivers in our country, even though I was living in California. In an OPB article by Ashley Ahearn about Boeing’s B-17 Bomber planes built along the Duwamish River for WWII, Shawn Blocker of the Environmental Protection Agency explains that being environmentally friendly didn’t exist back then. And yet for hundreds of years prior to the industrial revolution, people that lived along the Duwamish, and other rivers, fished and lived sustainably with them. As the country shifted from people living connected to the land toward a model of constant economic growth, Blocker’s statement seems to point to willful ignorance on the part of Boeing and other industries and governing bodies that ignored the rapid poisoning of the rivers. The knowledge was already there. And even if not then, certainly today we have extensive research proving the detriment and persistence of toxic chemicals in waterways and their bioaccumulation in wildlife, as well as humans. And yet the EPA’s risk assessment for new pesticides accepts studies by the industries that create them and serve to benefit from their approval when their own research shows no harm or risk (Boone et al 2014). As we clean up our polluted present, I hope we will look back and learn to prioritize the health of wildlife and the waters over those rolling green bills. -Lola Ahearn, Ashley 2015. My Grandfather and the Plane that Changed Seattle. OPB. http://www.opb.org/news/article/my-grandfather-and-the-plane-that-changed-seattle/ Boone MD, Bishop CA, Boswell LA, Brodman RD, Burger J, et al 2014. Pesticide Regulation Amid the Influence of Industry. BioScience 64: 917-922. |
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