NOAA and other Trustee Council members have been conducting a natural resources damage assessment since 2010 for the Portland Harbor Superfund site in Portland, Oregon, to evaluate natural resource injuries incurred over time in areas contaminated with hazardous substances (pesticides such as DDT, PCBs, and others), and oil.

National Ocean Service Deputy Assistant Administrator Nicole LeBoeuf met February 7, 2018, with key partners of the Rinearson Creek Restoration project in Gladstone, Oregon. The 33-acre restoration area is being created to bring back riparian, off-channel, and upland habitats for Chinook salmon, lamprey, bald eagle, river otter, and mink, as well as several important amphibian species.

In 2017, multiple agreements were reached requiring companies to restore natural resources damaged by industrial pollution:

NOAA, on behalf of the Portland Harbor Natural Resource Trustee Council, developed a restoration plan and environmental impact statement for the Superfund site. The plan proposes an integrated habitat restoration approach. This approach will result in habitat restoration projects that benefit a suite of fish and wildlife potentially injured by industrial contamination in Portland Harbor.

Salmon, mink, bald eagles, and other wildlife should be lining up to claim a spot among the lush new habitat freshly built along Oregon’s Willamette River.

Since the early 1900s, numerous facilities have released oil, PCBs polychlorinated biphenyls; a class of chemicals previously used in manufacturing that remain in the environment for many decades, accumulate in living creatures, and pose health hazards to humans, wildlife, and fish., heavy metals, pesticides, and other hazardous substances into Portland Harbor.