Gotta love that circular logic: "We might as well let it get contaminated, 'cause it's gonna get contaminated anyway..."

Across the street from me was a large field that a pair of hawks would raise an offspring each summer.
When they put in a subdivision they named a road after the breed, now long gone.
So simply naming a road Eagle St should suffice don't you think?

What saddens me most is that the "decisions" that Adams and some other City Council members are making will be with us for decades, if not centuries.

And almost none of the so-called environmental "concerns" that current city council members have mentioned have ever been dealt with. In fact, things are clearly and unequivocally worse.

Unless, that is, you're a Friend of City Hall (or an Adams sycophantic staffer).

Will all the green and sustainable supporters take their blinders off now to see Adams for what he is here - a hypocrite, as this is not green and sustainable. Or is this green and sustainable movement only into “selective” sustainable? Is this what we have here, selective regulation?

http://www.oregon.gov/DEQ/
The mission of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is to be a leader in restoring, maintaining and enhancing the quality of Oregon's air, water and land. Learn more about DEQ's activities and how we measure success through our Strategic Directions page.

From the O link above:

Wendy Wiles, DEQ's land quality administrator, said she concluded that prospects for industrial use are "reasonably likely" and dumping is justified. The Port, which told DEQ it planned to use the space for industry, may have to relocate the fill or cap it if the council opts against industrial development, she said.

The Metro regional government's plans include the Columbia River island as future industrial land.

In a Sept. 17 letter to the Port, Mayor Sam Adams called the timing of the permit application "unfortunate" and reiterated that "all options" are on the table. But the mayor didn't reject industrial development, Wiles noted. On Sept. 22, Portland planners told DEQ that the island's zoning allows dumping.

"There's nothing we've seen that suggests it's not going to be developed," she said.

Adams is a puppet setting this one up so that Wiles from DEQ could take an avenue through to doing this and being able to say "There's nothing we've seen that suggests it's not going to be developed," she said.

All this is justified?
Taking leaps without a hearing?
Do they plan to dump before Audubon or citizens can gather funds or proper paperwork to file any legal procedures?
Also, would like some backgrounder here? has this island always been zoned as such and if so, why not changed for protection if we are so "green" here? or was the zone if changed - when and under whose direction then to allow this? Just who is responsible for letting this treasure be on the block without protection?
What is the big hurry here?

I suggest that we rename our city to the
"Selective Sustainable City" so it becomes clear to all what goes on here.

Once again our vaunted "environmentally aware" groups are silent. Where are you Oregon Environmental Council, Oregon Wild, Sierra Club, Physicians for Social Responsiblity? Scared of losing SamRand's cash? Idiots one and all.

Nice job leaving Audubon's Bob Sallinger to fight for all of us. Bob, my check is in the mail. Thank you.

I read the LUCS (land use compatibility statement) as the planner saying that dumping on the property is a nonconforming use under the Multnomah County Code. The Code defines "nonconforming use" to be one that had already been lawfully established at the time that the county adopted the code. A "nonconforming use" is one that isn't allowed under today's code, but is allowed to continue only because it existed before the code came into force. Nonconforming uses are allowed to expand only under certain conditions, not as a matter of right. So it seems to me that the city may not have given DEQ the complete story about the county zoning on the dumpsite.

POP, CoP, ACE, DEQ, ~ What a daisy chain. Poor eagles and other victims, caught up in those fantasies. Reasonably likely they'll get sued and lose. Hey Audubon, promise us you'll include DEQ in that rogue's gallery of defendants. For the eagles!

P.S. -- It wouldn't have been so easy if the eagles hadn't been taken off the endangered species list in a Clinton-initiated, Bush-completed political maneuver deliberately designed at the height of the building bubble to benefit land developers at the expense of bald eagles.

Mojo,
Good point. What other standards were lowered or species removed from lists during this golden age for some?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_Eagle

In the late 20th century the Bald Eagle was on the brink of extirpation in the continental United States, while flourishing in much of Alaska and Canada. Populations recovered and stabilised, so the species was removed from the U.S. federal government's list of endangered species and transferred to the list of threatened species on July 12, 1995, and it was removed from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife in the Lower 48 States on June 28, 2007.

Grizzlies and wolves -- next in line as proposed for de-listing as sufficiently "recovered" (i.e., still around but inconveniently populated) -- are in the way of insatiably rapacious oil, gas & coal greedheads. I'm sure there are more in the pipeline, to pun.

P.S. ~ How repulsively ironic it is that the dredge spoils proposed to be dumped on Hayden Is. contain DDT -- the destroyer of eagles (and other raptors, pinnacle species, and songbirds). Wendy Wiles & DEQ are derelicts for laying down on this one.

Hey Kroger, Mr. Environmental A.G.: what's up with THAT? We'd welcome press release #101 if you'd actually do something meaningful for the environment, preemptively -- not after the damage is done!

How much for a dead eagle these days? Not the point, dummy.

Mojo,
Thanks for opening the curtain on this one.
DDT? Is there any way of getting this news out on NPR or somewhere national about how this green and sustainable city really is when that curtain is open?

As many people know well, DDT has been outlawed from the U.S. for decades. And for good reasons. Read the great Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Sam Adams and puppetmasters probably couldn't pick Rachel's picture out of a line-up.

DDT is very highly toxic to fish species as well. Reported 96-hour LC50s are less than 10 ug/L in coho salmon (4.0 ug/L)....Observed toxicity in coho and chinook salmon was greater in smaller fish than in larger....It is reported that DDT levels of 1 ng/L in Lake Michigan were sufficient to affect the hatching of coho salmon eggs....

In addition to acute toxic effects, DDT may bioaccumulate significantly in fish and other aquatic species, leading to long-term exposure. This occurs mainly through uptake from sediment and water into aquatic flora and fauna, and also fish (12). Fish uptake of DDT from the water will be size-dependent with smaller fish taking up relatively more than larger fish....DDT is very highly persistent in the environment.... [footnotes omitted].

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/carbaryl-dicrotophos/ddt-ext.html

Coho salmon are federally listed as a threatened species in the Lower Columbia River.
http://www.nwr.noaa.gov/ESA-Salmon-Listings/Salmon-Populations/Coho/

The Lower Columbia River Coho have been recognized as one of only seven "evolutionarily significant" groups of Coho in the U.S. Id.

How Green is Portland? Looks awfully pale these days. Very sick, in fact.

Mojo,
Where do the DDT dredge spoils come from? Are they just moving from point A to point B?

Portland is looking pea green sick.

Yep -- according to the article "75,000 cubic yards of sediment from the Willamette River's Post Office Bar" to "pump it onto the Port-owned island, whose northern flank has long been a dumping site."

And, as Sam Adams and his puppeteers always say two wrongs make it just right.

Go by crud pumper!

Adams and the rest of City Council don't know *how* to deal with problems like this. Especially Adams--a thoroughly urban, talentless, visionless hack of a public servant who, like a bad Russian movie character when the going gets tough, always promises to "work harder" and "redouble his efforts".

But he doesn't actually do that--unless you count liasons in the City Hall men's room.