On Oregon Riverfront, Ecology and Economy Meet

Jun 25, 01:58 PM

Current Headlines: By Alison Ryan

The Willamette River's North Reach is an Oregon hub for industry and trade, but it's also a hub of natural habitat.

"This whole area, between the ecological and the economic, is quite dynamic," Roberta Jortner, an environmental planner with Portland's Bureau of Planning, said.

Industry and nature - and how the two connect - are big parts of the northern Willamette's basic fabric. And a draft plan for the river's North Reach area, which stretches from the Fremont Bridge to the Columbia River confluence, will take a look at that intersection between ecology and economy.

Members of the eight-person River Plan Committee got an early look Tuesday at what task groups and city staff are recommending for industrial policy and zoning. Suggestions focused on keeping in place policies and overlay zones that maintain the harbor riverfront for river-dependent and river-related industrial uses.

"This is one of the economic engines of this community, and it's because we created this special zoning," river industrial zoning task group member Ann Gardner of Schnitzer Steel said.

While some changes - such as removing industrial overlay zoning from sites that no longer have river access and converting the McCormick and Baxter site to a mixed-employment zone - were recommended, most of the discussion focused on protecting industrial land supply along the riverfront.

"It's prime industrial area," planner Steve Kountz of the Bureau of Planning said. "It has features that would be very difficult, if not impossible, to replicate elsewhere in the region."

Natural resources of North Reach, chronicled in a draft inventory the bureau released this month, are also key to the region, Jortner said. North Reach contains 2,170 acres along 12 miles of the Willamette River, as well as five miles of streams and 86 acres of wetlands. About 19 percent of North Reach has streams, wetlands, riparian corridors and habitat, about two-thirds of which have a high relative-value rank.

The natural resource inventory efforts and the task group's work are about to come together as the city looks for ways to keep the harbor vibrant while improving and protecting the area's environmental health. Potential efforts include acquisition of mitigation sites, options for off-site mitigation, incentives for protection of natural resources and encouragement of habitat- and environment-friendly practices.

Players from both the industrial and natural communities are watching the process. For businesses along Portland's working waterfront, improvement of watershed health could also mean fee hikes and additional regulation. On sites like the Port of Portland's Terminal 2, the port's Susie Lahsene said, any development could require mitigation or paying a fee in lieu of mitigation. And, she said, industry in North Reach is already working within state and federal regulatory arenas.

"That gets both complicated and complex," she said, "and expensive."

River Plan staff are forming another task force to explore what protection and conservation could involve in terms of mitigation requirements and fees. The next step, Sallie Edmunds, River Plan project manager, said, will be considering alternatives for the integration of natural resources and industrial development. She said she wants to bring a proposal before the committee during its September meeting.

"We're getting really close," Edmunds said. "We made a lot of progress in the last six months."

(c) 2007 Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.