Last week, the City Hearings Office approved PGE’s application for Phase 3 of their Harborton Reliability Project. Over the past year, we have opposed this application due to its ecological harm from the removal of 4.7 acres of trees, in addition to other impacts this will have on Forest Park and issues we have with the application itself. Since then, we have begun communicating with local partners and exploring options for how we can oppose this proposal going forward, including potentially appealing the decision with the city.
You can read our full statement from our executive director, Scott Fogarty, below.
We at Forest Park Conservancy are dismayed by the misguided decision from the City of Portland to approve Phase 3 of PGE’s Harborton Reliability Project, a decision which would allow for the removal of 4.7 acres of trees, the filling in of native streams, and the filling of two wetlands that hosts a number of sensitive species in decline in our region including the Northern red-legged frog. This decision came as a surprise to us as the community has clearly voiced vigorous and vociferous opposition based on facts and legitimate concerns about the impacts of this project. Our stance remains that we believe PGE’s proposal would violate the Forest Park Natural Resource Management Plan’s requirements, that the ecological degradation caused by this proposal may not be fully mitigable, and that PGE’s lack of transparency during this process has been concerning. This last point is especially true given the fact that we still do not have information on the full scope of potential phases four and five of this project, so the full impact of this project is likely to go beyond the 4.7 acres of trees that PGE aims to remove. These stances are grounded in our organization’s legitimate concerns about this process, this project’s potential impacts, and the long term impacts on our region’s sustainability, not our “feelings”.
This is a great step backwards in our city’s efforts to promote climate resilience, community engagement, and proper use of our critical green spaces. We plan on working with other organizations and local community partners to continue to push back on PGE’s efforts. To that end, we are considering appealing this decision with the city as part of our efforts to protect Forest Park.
-Scott Fogarty, FPC Executive Director
