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A handful of major corporations, including
Boise-Cascade and Weyerhauser, are getting waivers from the state
of Oregon to dump their toxic wastes directly into the Willamette
River at levels in excess of what would otherwise be permitted
under the Federal Clean Water Act. As a result, these big businesses
are profiting by using Oregon’s central waterway as a low-cost
alternative to their waste-disposal needs and the health of our
river is suffering greatly.
Despite the danger posed by this
toxic dumping, a growing number of communities rely on the Willamette
as their source of drinking
water, thousands of recreationalists use the river for fishing
and swimming and it’s depended upon by a number of endangered
species including salmon and steelhead trout as the source of their
critical habitat.
The Sierra Club’s Building Environmental Communities campaign
to end what state regulators refer to as toxic “mixing zones” in
the Willamette River is mobilizing concerned citizens from all
over our metropolitan area, from the confluence with the Columbia
River in North Portland to the waterfalls at Oregon City up to
farmlands and wine country of Newberg and Dundee.
By engaging strategically
in grassroots activism, this volunteer-powered campaign is exposing
the private profits and widespread contamination
caused by these big polluters and is putting pressure on the state’s
Department of Environmental Quality to put an end to these pollution
control waivers that put the health of our river in jeopardy.
By
building the capacity for activism here today, this campaign is
not just a response but an investment in each other, neighbor-to-neighbor,
that will build relationships and will strengthen and safeguard
our community for generations to come.
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