Proposed project would tackle Willamette pollution and toxic lagoon

The latest: The parties responsible for the Superfund cleanup on the Willamette north of the Broadway Bridge have proposed using the contaminated soil to fill in the 130-foot-deep lagoon, as first reported by the Oregon Journalism Project.

• A consortium would purchase Ross Island and the polluted soil would be capped to contain the contaminants, similar to successful projects in Tacoma, Boston Harbor and the Hudson River in New York.
• Roughly 7% of the soil is considered hazardous and would still need to be trucked to a landfill.

Catch up quick: The Portland Harbor site, a 10-mile stretch from near downtown to the confluence with the Columbia, is home to hundreds of millions of cubic tons of soil contaminated by decades of industrial pollution that needs to be removed.

• Since the harbor was declared a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2000, the plan has been to dig up the soil, truck it to central Oregon and deposit it in landfills, which could cost up to $7 billion.

The Ross Island lagoon and its nasty algae blooms are the product of years of gravel mining, which left a stagnant body of water that frequently results in blooms that make the river dangerous for people and animals.

• The state established reclamation goals for the lagoon that required it be filled back in 2002.

A January letter from 10 environmental groups called on Gov. Kotek to support the plan.

• "We view this moment as an opportunity to imagine a creative public ownership and stewardship model whereby Ross Island can be held in perpetuity to ensure environmental protection," the group wrote, per the Oregon Journalism Project.

What's next: The plan would need to get approval from the EPA and the state before it could move forward.

• But it would need to happen soon. The EPA plans to start removing soil from the harbor in 2028.