Opinion: PGE should drop effort to condemn land near Willamette Falls

Travis Williams

Williams is riverkeeper and executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper, which works to protect and restore the Willamette River’s water quality and habitat. He lives in West Linn.

Willamette Falls, located in Clackamas County, is a natural wonder. The Willamette pours some 40 feet over a basalt rock formation in a striking show of power and beauty. Native people have been using the area for thousands of years, to live, fish and collect lamprey. Once white settlers arrived, the process of taking land, not honoring treaties, abandoning agreements and asserting rights they did not have became all too common.

In time, the area around Willamette Falls was drastically altered, by a variety of interests – including Portland General Electric, which operates a hydroelectric project there. Unfortunately, PGE is perpetuating elements of that wretched history today.

Recently, Portland General Electric filed suit in federal court seeking to condemn approximately five acres of public land at the base of Willamette Falls. With no input from the public, the well-known electric utility is seeking to wrest control of land from the state of Oregon by way of a provision in the Federal Power Act. The problem is the utility has no real claim to this public asset.

When Oregon became a state, the river and its bed and banks were held in trust for the people of Oregon, as they are now. For decades, PGE has not challenged Oregon’s interest in the area around Willamette Falls. But now, PGE is claiming it needs control of the five-acre parcel in question to maintain and operate its hydroelectric project safely. PGE’s explanation is unconvincing. The utility has operated the project for over 100 years with no need for the land they now seek. In supporting its claim, the utility provides only a vague argument that taking ownership is for “public interest purposes,” without ever defining what those are. PGE then goes on to say that its current Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license requires ownership, which strangely crops up just now, even though the permit was renewed in 2005.

The move is troubling not only because the utility is seeking to privatize a public asset, but also because it’s the location of a fishing platform legally used by the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, which was permitted by the state lands department. It is unclear why PGE might have an axe to grind with the Grand Ronde or whether it’s connected to a dispute over access to the falls between Grand Ronde and other Oregon tribes that support PGE’s condemnation effort.

But whatever PGE’s objective might be, the means are unjustified. The PGE board of directors approved the effort to take public land under Section 21 of the Federal Power Act, which authorizes the utility to condemn property necessary for the hydroelectric project to meet public interest purposes. It was not designed for this situation, and reflects a very problematic approach, given they are quietly seeking to take public land, with no public input and with an explanation that doesn’t pass the smell test. PGE’s board should rethink its approach on this issue.

Nothing has changed in regard to how PGE manages its Willamette Falls project, and nothing in its past, current or future operations necessitates the transfer of public land to the utility.

Land around Willamette Falls is not something that a utility like PGE should just take to meet its political considerations. By asking a federal court to adjudicate this issue, the agency is betraying the public trust.