Category Archives: Concordia News

By Greg Bourget | Portland Clean Air Lead Researcher

Concordia neighborhood is near an industrial area and a busy industrial truck route. That is likely to cause dangerous industrial air pollution for neighbors because human health is not considered currently as a factor in the regulation of these industries by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

Since Gov. Kate Brown’s Cleaner Air Oregon rulemaking process started recently, DEQ has applied human-health regulation only to new industries coming to Oregon. Regulation of existing Portland-area industry has been limited so far to four of the most dangerous factories — all too far away to affect Concordia.

According to the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), which measured industrial truck 24-hour counts in Concordia, industrial truck activity throughout the neighborhood is very low. Samples taken on Lombard in 2018 found just 17 or 18 trips per day. The exception is on Columbia Boulevard, which was much higher — 380 industrial truck trips per day.

Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), however, sampled at 52nd Avenue and Columbia in July 2017 and recorded 2,549 truck trips in a day. That’s the second highest industrial truck count taken in over a decade of Portland-area samples taken by both agencies. Industrial trucks are all diesel-fueled. California reported that diesel particulate causes 70% of cancer risk from all airborne carcinogens combined, and the state banned unfiltered diesel trucks.

A Portland Clean Air analysis of ODOT and Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services records found 75% of Portland area trucks are still unfiltered. Diesel particulate is unusually tiny – so small that airborne particles enter the bloodstream easily from the lungs and are transported to every organ, including the brain.

Heavy metals and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) attach readily to the surface of these particles and are absorbed throughout our bodies to cause dozens of short-term and long-term symptoms.

When airborne diesel particulate concentrations are extremely high, this results in black or gray dust on doors and windows. Find more information at PortlandCleanAir.org.

Seventeen industries with relatively small quantities of industrial emissions comprise the industrial area to the north of Concordia. DEQ considers all but three of them small enough to not even need a permit. Three have lower-level air pollution permits.

If you smell industrial solvents, it could be them – or a leaking residential oil tank, tar from a roofing job or some other source.

We are working with the Concordia Neighborhood Association to monitor diesel particulate and VOC emissions using bike-mounted devices that take readings every two seconds. These require twohour-long bike rides to reach each street in the area.

The data are collected and made into a color-coded geographic information system map showing airborne concentrations of VOCs and airborne particulate one micron and smaller in diameter.

Volunteer bike riders are needed for this research. Please email Greg@PortlandCleanAir.org to volunteer for a ride – or if you have any questions about your exposure and/or what can be done about it.

Greg Bourger and Portland Clean Air works with 76 Portland neighborhood associations, churches and other local groups to assist stakeholder negotiations with the most dangerous unfiltered industrial smokestacks and diesel trucks.

By Erin E. Cooper | Concordia/Vernon/Woodlawn Neighborhood Emergency Team

In Portland, neighborhood emergency teams (NETs) are most often associated with earthquake preparedness and response.

Although that is often what draws people to volunteer and train for NET – and is a focus in training – NETs are also ready to respond to all kinds of large and small emergencies. For instance, in the past year, some of the ways NET members have volunteered include:

• Maintaining a safe perimeter around downed power lines until power company employees arrive
• Controlling traffic and monitoring patients at COVID-19 vaccination clinics
• Staffing warming shelters in the winter and cooling shelters in the summer
• Collecting donations of personal protective equipment and other supplies for first responders in the early stages of COVID-19
• Staffing evacuation shelters during Oregon’s 2020 forest fires
• Organizing and volunteering for mutual aid groups, including organizing and distributing food donations and other supplies
• Assisting at the Multnomah County Emergency Coordination Center with COVID-19 operations

Team members have also participated in thousands of hours of advanced training over the last year. Many of these topics are those associated with traditional disaster preparation, such as first aid and maintaining post-earthquake sanitation.

Other types of training have been made available to NETs in response to the needs of Portland’s population and the evolving role of NETs to assist in our communities. These trainings have covered topics such as diversity and equity in leadership, coping with trauma, building community resilience and building cultural competency.

There are currently over 2,000 active NET members on 87 neighborhood teams across Portland. Joining NET is a straightforward, multi-step process that starts by visiting PortlandOregon.gov/pbem/31667 to sign up.

In-person classes are suspended for the time being, but it’s possible to do the majority of the free training online. You’ll be able to complete the final – and most fun – hands-on portion of the training when it is safe to conduct in-person classes again.

Erin E. Cooper is a marine biologist living in Woodlawn. She spends a lot of time thinking about disasters and has been a NET member for many years. Contact her at OceanListener@gmail. com.

By Tara Williams | CNA Media Team

When Oregon native Chris Gibbons was a child, he often stayed with his grandparents who lived at 32nd Avenue and Killingsworth Street. Since last August, Chris has been living in a homeless camp at 33rd and Dekum Street.

“A couple friends of mine were staying here. They told me ‘Hey, we got a spot open down here if you need it.’ I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I was thinking to myself, ‘Wow, how ironic is this?’”

Concordians may have passed Chris’ camp and noted its whimsical touches – holiday lights and the outfits of the day displayed by Manny the mannequin. Neighbors who frequent Nextdoor.com may know Chris from his posts that offer snow shoveling and handyman services.

Some have contributed to his GoFundMe.com requests, which he started in November to raise money to clean up piles of trash left in the camp by previous residents. “It looks so much better,” Chris observed.

Challenges facing the houseless include taking care of basic needs. “When I first got here, I was trying to figure out, ‘Where does everyone use the bathroom at?’” He and his campmates take turns walking to a nearby gas station, store or restaurant, or they use the compost toilet they made.

“That’s one of our biggest challenges. A bathroom would be just awesome, and that would be a big step. I heard they put a lot of port-apotties out last summer. But a lot of them got destroyed or vandalized, and those people kind of ruined it for the rest of us.”

Chris said the camp could use a generator to provide electricity. “It gets so dark here,” he said. “There’s no outdoor lighting in this area.”

Food storage is also a problem. “We get a lot of rats here.” One of his campmates’ cat kills several per night. And Chris now has a device placed in the ground outside his tent that keeps the rats from digging under and up.

In March, Chris’s 1994 red Mustang was stolen . “You gotta watch your stuff 24/7. It’s not a good situation.”

He could also use a more durable tent, and he is very interested in tiny homes. A friend of his in another camp was offered a job building tiny homes on Powell Boulevard and received housing when the project was completed.

Tara Williams is new to Concordia and loving life on Liberty Street. She’s a writer and English professor, not always in that order. Contact her at Eudaimonia.Dr.Williams@gmail. com.

By Tara Williams | CNA Media Team

Chris Gibbons became unhoused last August, six months after being released from prison. An attempt to make hash oil in his apartment kitchen had ended in an explosion and three years in prison.

“I wasn’t out burning anyone or anything up. It was due to me doing something stupid, and it blew up in my face,” Chris said. “I got burned up really bad. I was nine days in Emanuel’s intensive care burn unit.”

He had been out of the hospital for a week. “The police came at 2 a.m. I was still all bandaged up and looked like a Q-tip, but they handcuffed me anyway. I was terrified.

“I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t talk to anybody. The court declared my wife and two daughters victims because they were there. I had no contact with any of them until I was sentenced and placed into prison.”

Chris pled guilty to the arson charge, which reduced his sentence. His marriage did not survive his prison term.

Recently an organization that had denied him housing in the past notified Chris he is eligible for a grant to pay for two years of housing.

“They said the problem now is finding a place that is suitable and will accept me. Some places won’t accept me because of my arson charge. That’s my biggest barrier. That’s why I’m still here at the camp.

“I know someone who had an arson charge, and it took him four years.”

Chris acknowledged not all campers would rather be housed. Some are happy with how they’re living. “They’re content being here. I’m not trying to sound rude, but it’s like they don’t care. That kind of threw me for a loop.

“They don’t care that they might have to move spontaneously, so they just create these big giant messes. Then they leave it for people like us, and we get stereotyped because we’re stuck with it.

“It’s kind of sad, you know? I guess I’m trying to emphasize that we’re not the type that don’t care.

“A lot of people come up to us and ask, ‘Hey, do you mind if I post a tent up over here?’ At this camp, we’re really selective about who we’re going to have here,” he said. “We don’t want trouble.”

Chris shares camp space at 33rd Avenue and Dekum Street with a couple who live in another tent. “We talk a lot. We want to change. We do care. We know that this is just a step we have to take in order to move up or to improve. “Unfortunately we’re here. We’re going to try to make the best of it.”

Tara Williams is new to Concordia and loving life on Liberty Street. She’s a writer and English professor, not always in that order. Contact her at Eudaimonia.Dr.Williams@gmail.com.

By Nancy Varekamp | CNews Editor

The encampment on 33rd Avenue between Columbia Boulevard and Marine Drive is just one on the radar of the city. And there’s no easy solution for risks any of them may pose for the campers and/or their housed neighbors.

Assemblies of cars – ones burned to uselessness – are one concern, Jonathan Lewis told 30 Concordians at the March 3 neighborhood association general meeting. “Whenever they go to remove a vehicle, it only seems to make space for people to bring in another vehicle,” added the Portland Homelessness and Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program coordinator.

Health and safety are the chief concerns of his agency, which is assigned to provide services related to homelessness. “Our vision is to achieve a community where everyone has a safe and lawful place to sleep, access to basic hygiene, and public sanitation standards are maintained,” he said.

Reporting on the One Point of Contact system anything contrary to that vision is how everyone can help. “It’s designed to identify where the camps are that pose the greatest risk to public health and safety,” Jonathan said. Report-generated assessments are averaging 1,500 per week.

“Our response is based on risks posed, not volumes of complaints generated,” Jonathan reported. Flooding One Point with the same complaint doesn’t move a site to the top of the list.

Depending on conditions of camps, some are removed, and others receive services that include garbage removal. “When you’re in a crisis mode, you literally cannot be concerned with garbage,” Jonathan explained. With the pandemic’s economic ravages have come a dramatic increase in campers, and their waste. Garbage removal prior to the pandemic averaged 60,000 pounds per month, but January’s was 800,000 pounds.

The unhoused aren’t alone in increasing that situation. “We have gotten reports where unhoused people are telling us housed folks are driving by and dumping their garbage.”

Other health and safety concerns related to houselessness also have no easy solutions. “Our program is just one spoke on the wheel,” Jonathan said. City, county and regional governments and organizations work together in their efforts to make Portland safe for its residents, housed and unhoused. He also pointed to individuals’ efforts to help each other during the ongoing pandemic, the February ice storm and especially to projects like the Free Fridges popping up across the city.

“I feel there’s no shortage of creative solutions within the Portland community,” he noted. “There’ s no shortage of opportunities for folks like yourself to get involved. What that looks like is for you all to decide.”

Nancy Varekamp is semi-retired from her career in journalism, public relations and – her favorite work engagement – writing and editing targeted newsletters.