Industry and water, in the land of water

I have just returned from a fairly full week in Portland, Oregon, a veritable land of water compared to New Mexico and most of the Southwest of course. The trip was for the American Society for Environmental History meetings, and I was fairly disciplined about going to sessions for the first couple of days. The highlight, in educational terms, was the river-boat tour of the Willamette River on Wednesday, prior to the conference start.

For many who don't know the region or the Pacific Northwest well, and here I include myself, what was remarkable was the concentration and rich multi-layered effects of heavy industry on the river. Here, in Ecotopia as Joel Garreau once called the Northwest (Nine Nations of North America), it was pretty unexpected to see and hear about the heavy human use and footprint. Industry still crowds the river bank of the Willamette that is pretty startling; even new development in the city requires only a 25 foot setback from the river (which is nothing). And urban (runoff) environments are far harder on riparian ecosystems and aquatic organisms than cattle, which usually have a greater setback requirement in many regions. Some stretches made Albuquerque and Rio Rancho look positively "green" by comparison, though the kind of contamination that New Mexico will have to worry about is of the largely invisible (radiation) variety. Some 20-30 miles of the Willamette, however, are easily classified as Superfund sites according to EPA rules - not all have been declared, of course.

Still, spoil-banks, gravel mines, creosote industries, steel operations, boat manufacturing, they're all still present and mostly active along the banks of this one stretch of river in the Northwest. The irony here, at least for me, is that Portland (and the region) is so commonly portrayed as some kind of nirvana for sustainability. And the current practices certainly do reflect an earnest commitment to sustainable ideas - high density living, great mass transit (are you listening Colorado Springs!?), and a fantastic farm-to-table restaurant scene. I did get a day to drive south and southwest into Pinot Noir country, but not as far as Corvallis unfortunately so no real chance this time to talk to the Aquadoc (Michael Campana) at OSU. Maybe next time...