Portland’s Green Programs Create Healthy Watersheds

This guest commentary appeared in The Oregonian on June 1, 2013.

The Portland Water Users Coalition and Friends of the Reservoirs complain that Mayor Charlie Hales’ budget doesn’t cut sewer rates enough, and these groups threaten to create a separate utility to take watershed protection out of the city’s hands. (“It’s time for serious reform on water and sewer rates,” Commentary, May 21). We disagree.

The Portland Water Bureau is rightly being scrutinized for questionable use of ratepayer fees. However, the Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) use of sewer fees is wholly within the bureau’s mission. Its mission is to protect “public health, water quality and the environment” by providing sewage and stormwater collection and treatment services for the Portland community. The bureau protects the quality of surface and ground waters and conducts and promotes healthy ecosystems in our watersheds.

City code describes BES as being “responsible for design, construction, operation and maintenance of the sanitary and stormwater collection and transport systems, and watershed management.” Its mission as of September 2000 is “serving the community by protecting public health, water quality and the environment.”

In their lawsuit against the city, corporate water users contend that the bureau’s green infrastructure programs — tree planting, green streets, ecoroofs and acquisition of sensitive headwaters — fall outside the bureau’s mission. All of these programs are mission-driven. Programs such as stream restoration and acquisition of sensitive areas, such as the 146-acre River View Natural Area, result in a healthier Willamette River and will improve water quality in its tributary streams. By combining gray infrastructure with green infrastructure (3,500 new trees, green streets, removing invasive plants from parks and natural areas, and improving wildlife habitat) the bureau will save $63 million in its Tabor to the River program and create more livable neighborhoods in the process.

In addition to being squarely within the bureau’s mission, green infrastructure programs save ratepayers money while protecting gray infrastructure, such as with the $1.44 billion Big Pipe project to manage wastewater overflows. Without green streets, expanded urban forest canopy and ecoroofs to manage stormwater, the Big Pipe would reach capacity as the city grows. Green infrastructure programs also ensure the city’s compliance with federal environmental laws, such as the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act.

Yes, the mayor and City Council should be sensitive to keeping sewer rates as low as possible, but they should also protect the city’s green infrastructure programs that have become a model for the rest of the country. These programs are central to the city’s stormwater management efforts and as such are rightly included in sewer utility fees. They should not be paid for from the city’s general fund, where they will be vulnerable to current and future budget cuts.

BES has made significant strides over the past two decades, transitioning from a bureau that simply moved sewage around in pipes to a holistic watershed health bureau that contributes to the city’s quality of life and ecological sustainability.

Mike Houck is the executive director of the Urban Greenspaces Institute in Northwest Portland. Judy BlueHorse Skelton is on the faculty of Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University. The following people also support this commentary: Bob Sallinger, conservation director, Audubon Society of Portland; Scott Fogarty, executive director, Friends of Trees; Ted Labbe, Depave.