December 28, 2002
Battling for Mt. Tabor
A group calling themselves Friends of the Reservoirs is trying to stop the city's plans for the Mt. Tabor reservoir:
This is a once in a century moment. The landmark reservoirs that have shaped Mt.Tabor Park and the character of Portland may soon be gone. Once gone, they will never return.
The decision was hidden in the city budget process. A narrow public process has now begun, but participants are being instructed to only discuss "what goes on top" of the buried tanks.
In response, the group asserts the following aims: reconsider the vote; restart the public process; use neutral facilitators, put everything on the table; provide for independent fact finding; and develop a realistic timeline.
On the other side, we have the City of Portland's Open Reservoir Replacement Project for Mt. Tabor:
The City will remove three reservoirs from service, replacing two reservoirs built in 1911 on the west flank of Mt. Tabor, with underground storage. Placing tanks at the same sites maintains the advantage of existing piping and gravity flows. These underground tanks will upgrade the storage facilities to current and anticipated state and federal standards as well as provide higher levels of security, public health, and water quality protection. Once the reservoirs are contained, the City can install park improvements, to be identified during the public involvement process.
Personally, I'm conflicted on the Mt. Tabor reservoir issue. On the one hand, I need more information to understand the city's position that the reservoirs should be buried. But on the other hand, I'm not convinced that "we shouldn't change things, just because" is a particularly persuasive argument -- and it's one we've been hearing from the project's opponents.
There was a fairly recent and well-considered article by Randy Gragg in The Oregonian about the Mt. Tabor reservoir issue which all concerned parties should read. It considers the failed opportunities for real leadership on the part of the project's proponents, but also challenges the presumption on the part of the opposition that no substantive changes to the reservoirs should be considered at all.
Comments (7)
The One True b!X on 28 Dec 2002
To be fair, it's not so much that the opponents of the plan argue against the plan because "we shouldn't change things, just because" but rather that they argue against these changes because they don't reflect the intentions of the original designers.
In the end, however, it remains a vacuous argument. Resisting change merely because it's change has never been an adequate enough reason for opposition to anything. There are ways to pursue change that truly result in progress.
Whether or not we consider such an idea depends on how both sides approach the continuing dispute over the future of the Mt. Tabor reservoir. The city needs to be as open as possible to all potential ideas, and the opposition needs to realize that an agenda that will not even sit down to discuss the idea of change is simply being obstructionist without real cause.
Jack Bogdanski on 28 Dec 2002
Something has to be done. You can't just leave open reservoirs within city limits like this any more.
But tanks are not the only answer. And it would be helpful if the city process wasn't a sham, fully laden with conflicts of interest.
Walker on 28 Aug 2003
Open reserviors are not much of a threat from a terrosism standpoint. The state of NY has several open reserviors, and they are NOT capping them. If the risk is great, then why jas Oregon has recieved little/no $$ from the federal gov't to fight terrorism. The city leadership is shockingly poor, pushing to rise our very high water rates and spend supwards of 200 million dollars to fix a system that needs minor improvements.
The One True b!X on 25 Sep 2003
Editor's note: Do not under any circumstances visit those zip code links. Those comments are an example of the increasing problem of webog comment spam. These people are hired -- most often by what appears to be a single firm peddling services with different names -- to cruise weblogs and post inane comments which sometimes seem, on the surface, to be at least tangentially related to the content at hand, when in reality they are simply advertising the URL of the services which hired them.
The One True b!X on 29 Sep 2003
Now, wouldn't you think that perhaps these comment spammers would be smart enough not to post their advertisements to pages where they've already been outed? Alas, apparently it is not so.
Yes, that last comment is more spam. Ignore it. Don't click on it. Et cetera.
Jason Newell on 09 Oct 2003
We must consider both health and physical beauty and a touch of reality. The Open Reservoir Replacement Project is NOT necessary. The reservoir must be drained, cleaned, and rebuilt every few years for safety and health reasons, but that does not necessitate burying an entire lake. Sources at the Portland Police Bureau report that there was never any real request for security risk analysis of the reservoir, from them or the FBI. City Officials claim this is a matter of security. Wrong! More importantly, the cost of hundreds of millions would be paid by utility rate payers. This is financially irresponsible and environmentally unfriendly! I am running for Portland City Council to oppose such tactics by the current business as usual council.
Visit my website @ www.newellforcouncil.com
The One True b!X on 09 Oct 2003
Once again, don't click that last comment's name, because it's comment spam. Actually, I think this time it might be adult comment spam.