This General Land Office map from the 1850s shows Willamette Cove. What is now the cove is in the middle of the image.
So, what happened at Willamette Cove that requires such extensive work?
Before there was a cove
Originally, there wasn’t much of a cove at what is now Willamette Cove. Since time immemorial, this part of the land was a complex riverside habitat that supported land animals like mink, kingfishers, otters and animals that would visit the river. The shoreline had willows and other water-loving plants that provided slow-moving water habitat for small fish, including juvenile salmon and lamprey. In places, the bluffs dropped straight into the river.
The Willamette River and its shorelines are part of the ancestral homelands, usual and accustomed areas and travel routes of Indigenous Peoples from multiple Tribes and Bands. Tribes and Indigenous communities continue to use and value the Willamette River and its shorelines today for life ways, ceremony, and other practices. These practices include harvesting First Foods and other resources. First Foods are traditional subsistence resources with special significance to Tribes. Examples include salmon, Pacific lamprey, and wapato, among others, although the significance of such resources is unique to each individual Tribe. These sacred resources are essential to feasts, ceremonies and other cultural uses.
The lower Willamette River area is located within the ancestral homelands of many Native peoples, including Cayuse, Chinook, Clackamas, Kalapuya, Klickitat, Molala, Nez Perce, Umatilla, Umpqua, Walla Walla, Warm Springs, Wasco, Yakama and numerous other Tribes and Bands. It supported communities who stayed throughout the year and communities who lived here as part of their seasonal rounds.
Metro is committed to working with Tribes to practice traditional and cultural lifeways at Willamette Cove. Metro is informally consulting with Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, and the Nez Perce Tribe. These staff-to-staff consultations aim to align Metro’s work at the site – the cleanup, conservation efforts and the nature park – with each Tribe’s treaty rights.
Industry at the cove
Taken from St. Johns Bridge, this photo shows the industry along the Willamette River in the 1930s. Willamette Cove is in the background, in front of the railroad bridge.
In the early 1900s, the crescent shoreline was created when the railroad bridge embankment was built out into the river. The gently sloping shore and shallows were covered by infill made of silt and sand dredged from the river with fill depths up to 30 feet or more. To protect against erosion, the shore was covered with rip rap, made of large rocks. Hundreds of wooden piles were driven into the riverbed to support piers that in turn supported buildings. Over the years of operations, additional filling occurred that included some debris such as brick, concrete, metal and glass.
The result was a raised, level stretch of land that could house industrial operations above the floodplain. The same type of engineered lands and structures were built up and down both sides of the Willamette and created today’s riverfront in Portland. What became Willamette Cove was three plots of land called the east, central and west parcels, each with separate owners and operations. The west parcel served as a plywood manufacturing plant from 1901 until 1963, when it transitioned to a lumber mill with a log pond. The central parcel was initially developed in 1903 with shops in the uplands and Port of Portland dry docks extending into the water. The dry docks operated from 1905 through World War II and the early 1950s, and were then moved to Swan Island, at which point the Port sold the property. The central parcel industries then shifted to plywood manufacturing and sawmill operations. The east parcel, developed around 1915, was a cooperage, making barrels and kegs, until the 1950s; then it hosted several small businesses.
The drydock at Willamette Cove in 1920. Later in the decade, a second drydock was dug and the dredged material was used to create a raised, level area of land where the railroad tracks in the foreground are located.
A pontoon that would become part of the dry-dock facilities slides into the water at Willamette Cove. Note the beams and other material under the tracks. Infill like this was used to level the upland at Willamette Cove.
Taken in 1920, this image shows shoreline at Willamette Cove was reinforced with brick and riprap to protect the industrial facilities from erosion and, more importantly, flooding.
Much of the contamination at Willamette Cove's upland were byproducts of the day-to-day operations of these businesses. Other contaminants came from industrial activity in the area, arriving at Willamette Cove from the river or the air, and some was even brought in the fill used to create the site.
By the early 1970s, all of the businesses had stopped operations at the cove. The west parcel’s buildings were demolished by 1972 and its log pond was filled in 1976, marking the end of Willamette Cove’s industrial operations era.
Metro purchases the cove
In the late 1970s, the Portland Development Commission acquired all three parcels and by 1982 the remaining buildings had been demolished. Through the 1980s, several development projects were proposed, but none went far. Meanwhile, nature began reclaiming the site. Native cottonwood trees grew along the banks and madrone and Oregon white oak trees grew up alongside non-native blackberry and scotch broom that enveloped leftover concrete. Neighbors, trail advocates and conservation groups began seeing its potential as a park.
In 1995, Metro asked voters to approve the first greenspaces bond measure. Advocates campaigning for the bond cited Willamette Cove as one of the properties the bond would purchase. That came true the next year when the Trust for Public Lands took ownership and immediately sold Willamette Cove to Metro.
Metro was aware of some of the historical contamination at the site before making the purchase. The initial assumption, based on limited studies, was the contamination could be easily managed. Over the next four years, conversations about the City of Portland planning a park at the site faded as the extent and severity of contamination became clearer.
One site with two cleanups. Metro and Port of Portland are working together to clean up the upland, between the dotted orange lines. This work is overseen by DEQ. The EPA is overseeing a cleanup of the riverbank and riverbed.
The cleanup era
The past 24 years have seen a series of studies and three small cleanups. In 2021, DEQ selected a cleanup plan for Willamette Cove’s upland called a record of decision. With that guidance, and along with the in-water work being overseen by the EPA, the cleanup shifted from information-gathering toward creating plans to clean up Willamette Cove. That’s where we are today.