Protecting and restoring land sits at the core of Metro’s parks and nature mission. Thanks to voters, Metro has been able to purchase land and protect important areas of remaining native prairies, forests, wetlands and other valuable habitat — home to rare plants and endangered or threatened fish and wildlife. Other properties fill key gaps in regional trails, providing connections for bike commuters, hikers and joggers. Some natural areas, such as Chehalem Ridge and Newell Creek Canyon, became nature parks that provide growing communities with access to nature.
In fiscal year 2024, Metro spent $10.3 million to purchase and stabilize natural areas in our region. The purchases ammounted to 296 new acres under public conservation.
The 2019 parks and nature bond called on Metro to do this work with greater input from community members. The acquisition road map that guides Metro’s purchases was deeply informed by input from members of greater Portland’s Indigenous community. For instance, the road map places greater priority on cultural resources held in natural areas and looks for opportunities to restore streams diverted into pipes.
The bond provides up to $155 million for Metro to purchase natural areas from willing sellers and for large-scale restoration projects. This program continues the work of the 2006 bond measure, which acquired and protected more than 6,876 acres. Over the past fiscal year, Metro's addition of 296 acres to its portfolio of natural areas brings the 2019 bond measure’s total to 825 acres.
Purchases included 53 acres along the Tualatin River in Washington County and more than 100 acres along Pudding River in Clackamas County.
Story: Pudding River
Metro Parks and Nature scientist Andrea Berkley stands on the banks of the Pudding River in a bucolic stretch of farmland outside Canby, part of a 109-acre property purchased by Metro in January. She stretches her arm up to touch a tangle of dried river reeds floating like ribbons from the tops of willow bushes.
“You can see how high the water gets here during flooding,” Berkley says. “The idea is to slow that water and let it sit here and soak into the ground, instead of it running off immediately.”
Decades of agricultural development have led to a reduction in the riverside wetlands and forests that used to absorb floodwater and gradually release it back into the river, a process that helped to cool the water and filter out sediment and pollutants. As a result, the Pudding River has been listed under the Clean Water Act as having excessive pesticides, bacteria, and high temperatures. This new property acquisition offers Metro an opportunity to improve the river’s water quality.
Metro purchased the former farmland along the river as part of the Protect and Restore Land program of the voter-approved 2019 parks and nature bond. Right now, it is mostly made up of flat open fields. A drainage ditch runs through the property, diverting water filled with agricultural run-off into the river.
In years to come, Metro staff will work to restore this property into a multilayered wetland and floodplain forest that can help capture and filter run-off before it makes its way into the Pudding River – and, from there, into the Molalla River, which in turn feeds into the Willamette. In this way, work done here can have an effect on the whole region’s waterways.
“We can reduce downstream flooding, because more water is going to soak into the ground while it’s here than happens currently,” explained Berkley. “It’s slowing the water down. The pollutants and sediment will have time to settle. We’d rather have them here than in the river.”
From: Protecting the Pudding River