In 1962, the KGW reporter, Tom McCall presented the television documentary “Pollution in Paradise” with the opening lines “clean water and clean air are imperative to life itself.” The documentary was a powerful message to the citizens of Oregon that the degradation of our waterways was impacting the health and welfare of our state. The film focused primarily on the 13th largest river in continental United States, the Willamette River.
Now over 50 years later, it is time to reflect back on this river that once nurtured an extremely rich and complex collection of species and habitats. Humans have hunted black-tailed deer and Roosevelt elk in the bottom-land hardwood forests and open grasslands along the shores of the Willamette River, dug camas bulbs from wet prairies in the river floodplains, collected freshwater mussels from the River sediments, and harvested steelhead trout and Chinook salmon from some of its fast-flowing tributaries for thousands of years. More recently, we built cities next to the Willamette River, constructed massive dams in some of its most important tributaries, heavily rocked miles of shoreline embankments, filled-in many of the River’s numerous side channels and sloughs, and discharged industrial pollutants and urban sewage along many of its reaches. There are predictions that 4 million Oregonians may be living in the Willamette Basin by 2050 and most of these citizens will likely settle near the River or its tributaries. Perhaps many in the Willamette Valley gave up on the River because the restoration challenges seemed too great, but some like Tom McCall, viewed the challenges as opportunities and initiated regulations and policies that led to altering how we use the River.
Stan Gregory, David Hulse and some of their colleagues in 2002 proposed a challenge to the citizens living in the Willamette Basin in their Willamette River Basin Planning Atlas: “How does the Basin accommodate many more people without losing the qualities that attracted people to live in the Basin.” This remarkable Atlas is a blueprint for the future of the Willamette River and was a result of a comprehensive analysis of historic, current, and future trends in the Willamette Basin. Oregonians were offered a choice that if they desired to pursue a future of a healthier Basin with clean rivers and streams, and habitats for native fish and wildlife then they needed to pro-actively begin the steps of mending the land and water.
Since the publication of the Atlas, there has been an extraordinary amount of progress in protecting and restoring the Willamette River systems through an informal partnership of funding organizations such as the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, Meyer Memorial Trust, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Bonneville Power Administration, and non-profits such as land trusts, SWCDs and watershed councils.
Nearly 4000 acres of Willamette River floodplains have been place in permanent protection, and many other private lands have landowners committed to restoring riparian forests and creating better passage for fish. In the last few weeks, Greenbelt Land Trust purchased an amazing property next to the Willamette River that contains towering cottonwoods, giant maples and ash, and many side channels that fill with water and fish after winter and spring rains. This acquisition was one small step to fulfilling the future vision described in the Atlas.
