PDC Kicks Off Gateway Park Development
The Portland Development Commission officially kicked off the planning efforts for the proposed Gateway Neighborhood Park, the first park added to the neighborhood in the past eight years.
The park will sit on a four-acre brownfield site near Northeast Halsey Street and 106th Avenue. The site is currently being cleaned up and removed of contaminants through a $200,000 Brownfields Cleanup Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
PDC and Portland Parks and Recreation acquired the site in late 2008 for the purposes of building a park. Three acres of the site will be used for the park and the additional acre will be used for supporting redevelopment.
The planning efforts started with an onsite planning event where city staff and citizens worked in small groups to start designing the park.
Citizens still have time to provide input on the plans for the park. A second planning event will be held at the East Portland Community Center, located at 740 Southeast 106th Avenue, on Thursday, September 23 from 6 to 8 p.m. The final planning event will be held on Thursday, November 18 from 6 to 8 p.m. also at the East Portland Community Center.
For more information on the Gateway Neighborhood Park planning efforts, please click here.
Photo courtesy of Bureau of Environmental Services
BES Ahead of Schedule on East Side Big Pipe
The Bureau of Environmental Services got the opportunity to show off Portland’s largest sewer construction project ever, the East Side Big Pipe, to nearly 800 mining engineers during the Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration’s North American Tunneling Conference in Portland last week.
Construction of the 22-foot diameter, nearly six-mile-long tunnel is ahead of schedule and is on pace to be finished by this fall.
The East Side Big Pipe is one of the final projects in Portland’s 20-year program to control combined sewer overflows to the Columbia Slough and Willamette River. Completion of the $1.4 billion, 20-year program is slated for December of 2011. The project will reduce volume by 94 percent.
Kudzu, one of the plants on the City's Required Eradication List. Photo courtesy of Bureau of Environmental Services
BES Looks to Eliminate Invasive Species
The Bureau of Environmental Services is trying to eliminate 15 species of invasive plants so they don’t get a chance to become established in the city.
Beginning July 1 Portland property owners will be required to remove from their property any species of the city’s new Required Eradication List. The rule is part of the City Code Title 29 Property Maintenance Regulations, and applies to both private and public property owners.
The 15 plants on the list include:
- Russian knapweed
- False brome
- Italian thistle (a.k.a. slender flowered thistle)
- Jubata grass
- Paterson's curse
- Giant hogweed
- Orange hawkweed
- Meadow hawkweed (formerly yellow hawkweed)
- Policemen's helmet
- Scotch thistle
- Common reed
- Kudzu
- Blessed milk thistle
- Salt cedar
- Gorse
For more information on the plants or the new rule, please click here.
