Willamette Cove. This map is based on a current aerial photograph. The dotted line running the length of the cove is the unbuilt section of the North Portland Greenway Trail.
Between the Willamette River and the bluffs bordering the St. Johns neighborhood, Willamette Cove is a 27-acre urban refuge filled with cottonwood, Oregon white oak, and madrone trees. That’s why Metro purchased the property in 1996, right after the region’s voters passed Metro’s first greenspaces bond.
From the beginning, Metro’s plan was to make Willamette Cove a park featuring a section of the North Portland Greenway Trail. Community members championed the purchase and the vision for a park because the site was the only natural area with access to the Willamette River in North Portland.
Metro knew Willamette Cove had some amount of contamination from 70 years of industrial use based on the limited early studies conducted prior to Metro’s purchase. However, it was soon found that the site needed to be studied further and undergo a major cleanup before it is safe for people, plants and animals. In 2000, Metro and the Port of Portland entered a voluntary agreement with DEQ, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
Over the following 20 years, Metro and the Port conducted multiple studies to better understand the extent of the contamination. The partners also removed contamination from three portions of the site that needed immediate attention. In 2021, DEQ decided on a cleanup plan for Willamette Cove’s upland. When the cleanup is done and all of DEQ’s requirements are met, the entire site will be safe for people, plants and animals.
Alongside this work to clean up the upland, the Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing a cleanup of the riverbed and riverbank at Willamette Cove.
Metro and the Port are now using the study results to develop detailed plans and engineering designs to put shovels in the ground and clean up Willamette Cove.
The cleanup design gives Metro’s park planners the information they need to start imagining the future Willamette Cove nature park.
Which means after nearly 30 years, Metro is creating a nature park master plan for Willamette Cove. Tribal governments, Indigenous community members, people of color, the disability community, conservation and other community advocacy groups, and St. Johns and North Portland neighbors, both current residents and folks with family and cultural ties to the area, will help shape what the nature park will be.