H20shed Plan Gets Council Approval
Maria Thi Mai
Yesterday, Sam received unanimous support by Council for Portland's Watershed Plan. This Plan is a call to action and is based on science, collaboration, and partnerships.
In the photo, Sam has an exclusive interview with Kristen Foden-Vencil of OPB at the mouth of Stephens Creek where it enters the Willamette River.
This plan is not a "nice to do" project, it's a must do effort. We are faced with poor water quality in all 5 of our watersheds. The City's watershed approach is a holistic approach. Rather than focusing on single issues such as sewer overflows, we're addressing the system as whole through this watershed plan for action.
However, we can't do it alone. We need your help in managing your stormwater on site. This means disconnecting your downspouts, planting trees to soak up stormwater, and being mindful of how you might be adding pollution into your stormdrain (detergents, fertilizers, etc). Additionally, depending on what you can do, you may be elgible for a discount on your sewer bill.
Posted by Maria Thi Mai on March 7, 2006
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Filed Under Environmental Services, Front Page, Livability & Environment
Comments by site visitors
"I feel dismay that the mature trees are being cut down one-by-one by individual land owers with no replanting."
That's called, "density."
Posted by: chris McMullen | Mar 8, 2006 10:20:29 AM
No, that's called "development."
"Density" actually reduces the amount of rooftop and asphalt (per capita) relative to canopy. Density preserves natural areas that would otherwise be susceptible to sprawling development.
Density admittedly has its downsides, but it definitely creates a smaller environmental impact than sprawl does.
Posted by: Roland | Mar 8, 2006 3:56:27 PM
""Where I used to see green I now see black tar rooftops funneling water into the sewers. The canopy cover decreases daily."""
It's called infill.
Cramming more units into the same space. Three houses where there was one.
Row houses where there houses and trees.
Roland,
Even Robert Liberty uses aerial photographs of the Portland area to show the heavily graying of the area inside the UGB and preservation outside.
We're getting density at all costs.
Losing the canopy and green where most of us live in order avoid sprawl.
We have natural areas preserved from here to eternity. It's the loss of small wooded/brush yards and spaces within the community which are being devoured by infixing created by bad planning.
"Sprawling development" could easily happen in areas not forest wetland or suitable for farming and more green would remain where most people live.
The radical, stop using land, model is blind.
Your theories are not preserving green.
In fact much of the density push it to help make our rail transit work better because it is hopelessly flawed as well.
What a circle. Light rail won't work without higher densities. Forced high density without regard for it's form, location or impacts is poor planning and will serve only to diminish the livability which you enamor will be improved.
Like he said, look out your window. Or take a look at the aerial photos.
""""'Density admittedly has its downsides, but it definitely creates a smaller environmental impact than sprawl does"""""'
What nonsense. Expansion, sprawl, has been continuous during the last 20 years of planning and that which has the least green and a sea of roofs, concrete and asphalt are all the recent ones resulting from the planning forced density model. The older ones are all greener because they are less dense, more yards, better spacing and empty lots.
As infill occurs many of these older neighborhoods become like the new ones you are apparently unaware of.
Do you ever drive around the region?
Posted by: Steve Schopp | Mar 8, 2006 5:31:21 PM
I hope OPB asked Kristen as they stood at the headwaters to Stephens Creek about the numerous City of Portland sewer breaks all along the creek, all the way to the City owned Butterfly Park at the Macadam Bay Club (City owned Park land) where it's green/yellow slime flows into the Willamette.
Just in a two hundred ft. long section of sewer about 1500 hundred ft from the creek's mouth there are over EIGHT sewer breaks in 200 ft. of sewer pipe length.
In fact, on the Greenway Trail next to mouth of the creek, there is a sewer manhole that spews up sewer frequently across the trail's asphalt.
In the Butterfly Park along the Willamette there are continual sewer breaks in the line that serves the Park Bureau's city owned Macadam Bay houseboats.
All of these facts have been reported to the City over the past 15 years. If you are worried about the environment, sometimes you might achieve more corrective action if you go to one of the pollution sources-the CITY.
Posted by: Lee | Mar 9, 2006 3:01:58 PM
This is classic:
"Sam Adams: It is, but we've got some challenges. We have 2900 miles of streets, we have buildings all over the place. But where that storm water goes, and storm water is when rain hits the surface it goes somewhere, and if we can get that storm water to go into the ground as closest to the point it hits the ground we'll recharge the rivers with cool clean water,...."
Maybe infill and density isn't such a good idea after all, Sam. Skinny houses on tiny lots and the massive hardscapes of UR districts just exacerbate the storm water drainage problem.
And then you want homeowners to disconnect downspouts so their basements and crawl spaces can flood?
The "smart-growther" hypocrisy just grows and grows.
Posted by: Chris McMullen | Mar 9, 2006 4:13:46 PM
A correction: the photo of Sam with Kristen Foden-Vencil of OPB is at the mouth of Stephens Creek where it enters the Willamette, not the headwaters.
Posted by: Jay Mower | Mar 9, 2006 10:48:59 PM
That's called, "density."
No, that's called "development."
"It's called infill."
Regardless of what you call it, the majority of the mature trees removed where cut down because it was "easier"
than working around them or saving them.
The Property owners could have saved them and after the project is done they put back at best shrubs and at worst nothing.
The city should encourage replanting with tax or permit fee credits and include an inventory of what is being cut in the plan review process for permits (e.g. "x" trees > 6" diameter).
We are on our way to re-earning the nickname: STUMPTOWN.
Posted by: Bryan H. Ackler | Mar 10, 2006 1:52:14 PM
"""The Property owners could have saved them and after the project is done""
You are missing the biggest part of this.
You can't plant a bush or tree where a roof, concrete or asphalt now sit because of mandated infilling and overcrowding of our communities.
Spacious neighbohodds now crowded with rowhouses and infill will never have the canopy and green they had before.
Period. A large sideyard with apple trees firs and alike is wiped out by a another house sqeezed on there.
Get it.
Posted by: Steve Schopp | Mar 10, 2006 9:57:01 PM
Have have understood concrete vs. green for many years.
Even with in-fill, density, sprawl, whatever........ the city requires
a certain amount of non structure, even on the "shiny new" 25x100 lots coming on-line. We should "encourage" as I stated earlier, the replanting of trees.
Heck even the city's own architectural renderings for projects always show trees, not just grass or low shrubs.
Posted by: Bryan H. Ackler | Mar 14, 2006 2:01:47 PM
The Interstate URD (I believe) is in large part responsible for the resurgence of life in the Mississippi neighborhood. "Smart Growth", or whatever you want to call it is a rational and realistic approach to the inevitable decline in cheap energy and population increases. We can preserve open space/farm land and still have elbow room if we are rational. The anti-planning knee jerk reaction that some spew forth is sort of interesting in the zeal with which is offered, but honestly, calm down. Good job Sam, water quality and the preservation of our watersheds is hugely important. Don't let the naysayers discourage this important work.
Posted by: Ron Sporseen | Mar 15, 2006 3:45:05 AM
Here we are again, the classic case of the "smart" growthers versus the "wise" users. The former says cram more people into the already-crowded urban places. The latter say spread 'em ad infinitum all around the countryside, there's no end to God's country. Neither see limits. Both are cornucopians. Both pray in their respective churches to the god of economic growth.
The one says filling in all the inner city areas is one's duty to the growth god. The other says that the highest performance of one's duty to the god is to build more roads and extend the distance by which inner city residents must travel to get to some pastoral beauty and peace and quiet. One says preserve some of the forests and farmland here, but not all of it, of course, because we have to accommodate the growth that the increased densities in the city can't accommodate. The other says, to hell with saving the forests and farmland, there's plenty more of them in the desert. Neither spends too much time morning the loss of night skies, considering exactly how many more people can the region feed, shelter and clothe, thinking about how ever-dwindling fresh water supplies will support an ever-increasing population, wondering how a region of people can be sustainable at the same time continue to increase its size and consumption. Nope, none of that is important. What's important is that we keep growing. How that happens, well, we'll just have to compromise, won't we? Sure, that makes the big businesses and the developers happy. More density and more sprawl. What a wise/smart growing solution! Keep praying to that god of growth, all ye faithful.
Posted by: Long View and Now | Mar 18, 2006 1:08:22 AM
Portland is hardly dense. Anyway, having more people makes the retail scene more lively and fun. Portland streets look deserted to me most of the day.
Posted by: Lenny Anderson | Mar 29, 2006 2:54:56 PM
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As I sit at my dinner table looking out the 3rd story picture window, I feel dismay that the mature trees are being cut down one-by-one by individual land owers with no replanting. Where I used to see green I now see black tar rooftops funneling water into the sewers. The canopy cover decreases daily.
Posted by: Bryan H. Ackler | Mar 8, 2006 7:21:44 AM