Feds moving in on Portland’s Big Pipe

The Oregonian reports this morning that the Environmental Protection Agency is butting heads with Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality and Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services over the Big Pipe and additional Columbia River safeguards.

The EPA wants to expand secondary treatment of the sewage and rainwater mix before it joins the river, while the local agencies prefer investing in green projects like planting trees and implementing ecoroofs and street swales for absorption.

At issue here is hundreds of millions of dollars, on top of other hundreds of millions of dollars.

As mentioned often at this week’s Partners in Community Forestry National Arbor Day Foundation conference in Portland, local utility rates are already among the highest in the nation thanks to the Big Pipe and other sewer/runoff upgrades.

What do we think of the Big Pipe?

–Toshio Suzuki