"Decades of industrial pollution in the Portland Harbor Superfund site have left high levels of contaminants in river sediment, an exhaustive survey concludes, posing risks to wildlife, fish and humans who eat fish from the nine-mile stretch of the Willamette River.

The report, due to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week, catalogs the results of more than 6,000 sediment and water samples and tests of fish and shellfish tissue conducted over eight years at a cost of $74 million.

It's the biggest step toward cleanup since the EPA declared the harbor a Superfund site in 2000, pinpointing where the concentrations and risks of toxic contaminants are highest -- the numbers needed to plan what's likely to be the most expensive restoration project in Oregon's history."


Scott Learn reports for the Portland Oregonian October 25, 2009. [2]