Blue Heron Paper Company | |
---|---|
Operated | 2000–2011 |
Location | Oregon City, Oregon U.S. |
Coordinates | 45°21′17″N122°36′45″W / 45.3548°N 122.6125°W |
Industry | Pulp and paper industry |
The Blue Heron Paper Company was a paper mill at Willamette Falls in Oregon City, Oregon, [1] [2] on the southeast bank of the river across from the Willamette Falls Paper Company, the T.W. Sullivan hydroelectric plant, and the Willamette Falls Locks and canal.
In its operation from 2000 to 2011, the mill produced recycled paper products ranging from newsprint to paper bags. Facing increased competition from China, the company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009. By 2011, the mill could no longer remain in operation due to the rising paper prices and lack of investors. [3]
The confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde acquired control of the land in 2019 for $15.25 million, and are now planning a cultural and community center. Four other tribes cite ancestral connections to the area. Said Trustee Toby Patrick, "Money makes a huge difference in everything that we do, and it takes us away from who we truly are as Indian people, and how we survived before we had money. We had each other and that's how we survived." [4]
In 1829, under the employment of the Hudson Bay Company, British fur trader John McLoughlin claimed two square miles of land around the Willamette Falls. Sawmills were erected to secure the land and began producing lumber for the Hudson Bay company. [5] [6] In 1832, McLoughlin directed his employees to blast a mill race along the falls and begin further construction of mills and housing. [7] Industrial expansion continued throughout the 1800s, and in 1866, Pioneer Paper Manufacturing Company was established. [8] This was the first paper mill in Oregon. Pioneer Paper Manufacturing Company closed in 1867, and from it came two new companies: Oregon City Mills and Crown Paper Company.
Oregon City Mills was a flour mill in operation until 1880, where it was purchased and then later absorbed into the Portland Flour Mills Co. [9] Portland Flour Mills Co. was successful and stayed in operation until 1907, when it was purchased by W. P. Hawley and converted back into a paper mill, becoming The Hawley Paper Company. [9] [10] In 1948, The Hawley Paper Company was sold to Publishers Paper Co, who then became Smurfit Newsprint Corp in 1986. In 1998, Smurfit acquired Stone Container Corporation and became Smurfit-Stone. This acquisition was expensive and to help alleviate debts, the paper division of the company was sold to KPS Special Situations Fund LF of New York and mill employees in 2000. [11]
Under the title of Blue Heron Paper Company, production continued. By 2006, the company was completely employee owned and operated. [12] In the years following the shift to employee ownership, Blue Heron's financial situation worsened. Prices for the paper waste needed to produce paper increased by 70 percent. This increase was widely attributed to overseas competition. [13] In 2009, the company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In 2011, Blue Heron Paper Company permanently closed citing rising paper costs and lack of investors. [3]
The Clackamas and Clowewalla tribes resided above and below the Willamette Falls. These tribes were not hunter gathers, nor practiced agriculture, but survived by fishing the falls. Large groups of men would use dip-nets or spears to catch fish, and these fish would then be preserved by drying or smoking. [14] The fish were so plentiful that neighboring tribes would frequently come to trade and request fishing rights to the falls. [15] In addition, the tribes were expert boatmen and were relied on heavily for river transportation. The villages of these tribes were made to be permanent. They build lodges out of cedar planks, and these lodges frequently housed upwards of 20 individuals. [14]
Though there is no known number of individuals in the tribes, Lewis and Clark estimated that there were at least 1500 members of the Clackamas tribe before during their 1804 expedition. In 1829, the first oceangoing vessel to sail up the Willamette, the Owyhee, anchored in the Clackamas Rapids. The captain, John Dominis, had wanted to set up a fishery. Though the accounts of the interactions between Captain Dominis and the Clackamas people vary, they ended with the Clackamas people swimming out and cutting his anchor. [14] In the small amount of time the Owyhee had docked, malaria had spread to the tribes along the Willamette. In the winter of 1829–1830, over nine tenths of the Clackamas and Clowewalla had died from the disease. By 1855, only 88 members of the Clackamas tribe remained, and only 13 members of the Clowewalla remained.
The complete devastation brought by malaria left the tribes of the Willamette Falls unable to stop their land from being stolen by English settlers. Infrastructure and housing created by the settlers began to overtake the falls, and in 1848 the last lodge that had been built by the Clowewalla was deliberately burned down. [15] With no where left to go, the last 88 Clackamas people signed a treaty on January 10, 1855, which ceded all of their land to the US government in exchange for a ten-year annuity of $2,500. The treaty was ratified March 3, 1855, and the remaining Clackamas people were to relocate to the Grand Ronde Reservation. [14] By the summer of the same year, the US government had forcibly moved the remaining tribe members into the reservation, and refused to pay out any of the annuity.
In 2000, the Blue Heron Paper Company was sued by The Northwest Environmental Defense Center, alleging that the wastewater produced by the paper mill was too warm and violated the Clean Water Act. This warm wastewater was argued to be too hot for the endangered salmon that reside within the Willamette River. [11]
After the 2011 closure and subsequent abandonment of the property, multiple clean-up projects have been carried out. In 2013, concerns about copper and zinc leaking into the environment from the dilapidated pipes and roofs were raised, as there was a risk to the endangered salmon population. The runoff from the facility was run through a compost system to filter out excess amounts of such metals, and this process was continued for five years. [16]
After the paper mill's closure in 2011, the joining of 4 local governments (the City of Oregon City, Metro, Clackamas County and the Governor's Regional Solutions Team) formed the Willamette Falls Legacy Project. This project was meant to survey the existing site and begin planning for redevelopment. [17] [18] In 2014 the group came to an agreement about the future of the project, and proposed to create a riverwalk in the place of the old mill. This proposal was expected to restore the surrounding environment, and create 1480 permanent jobs in the area. [17]
In 2019, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde purchased the site of the mill for $15.25 million. [19] The Tribes of Grand Ronde brought forth their own proposal for the redevelopment of the site, and began communications with Willamette Falls Legacy Project. [17] This budding partnership gained interest from the Willamette Falls Trust, which is a non-profit which represents four confederated tribes (Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, Yakama Nation and Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs) who have history within the falls. By 2021, all three independent groups had formed an official partnership to redevelop the site of the mill. [18]
In 2022, upset with the lack of any real progress on the redevelopment, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde pulled out of the partnership. [20]
Gladstone is a city located in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States. The population was 12,017 at the 2020 census. Gladstone is an approximately 4-square-mile (10 km2) suburban community, 12 miles (19 km) south of Portland, the largest city in Oregon, and located at the confluence of the Clackamas and Willamette rivers.
Oregon City is the county seat of Clackamas County, Oregon, United States, located on the Willamette River near the southern limits of the Portland metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 37,572. Established in 1829 by the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1844 it became the first U.S. city west of the Rocky Mountains to be incorporated.
The Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is 187 miles (301 km) long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward between the Oregon Coast Range and the Cascade Range, the river and its tributaries form the Willamette Valley, a basin that contains two-thirds of Oregon's population, including the state capital, Salem, and the state's largest city, Portland, which surrounds the Willamette's mouth at the Columbia.
Clackamas County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 421,401, making it Oregon's third-most populous county. Its county seat is Oregon City. The county was named after the native people living in the area at the time of the coming of Europeans, the Clackamas people, who are part of the Chinookan peoples.
West Linn is a city in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States. A southern suburb within the Portland metropolitan area, West Linn developed on the site of the former Linn City, which was named after U.S. Senator Lewis F. Linn of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, who had advocated the American occupation of the Oregon territory as a counterclaim to the British.
Milwaukie is a city mostly in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States; a very small portion of the city extends into Multnomah County. The population was 21,119 at the 2020 census. Founded in 1847 on the banks of the Willamette River, the city, known as the Dogwood City of the West, was incorporated in 1903 and is the birthplace of the Bing cherry. The city is now a suburb of Portland and also adjoins the unincorporated areas of Clackamas and Oak Grove.
Chinookan peoples include several groups of Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest in the United States who speak the Chinookan languages. Since at least 4000 BCE Chinookan peoples have resided along the upper and Middle Columbia River (Wimahl) from the river's gorge downstream (west) to the river's mouth, and along adjacent portions of the coasts, from Tillamook Head of present-day Oregon in the south, north to Willapa Bay in southwest Washington. In 1805 the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the Chinook Tribe on the lower Columbia.
Portland General Electric (PGE) is a Fortune 1000 public utility based in Portland, Oregon. It distributes electricity to customers in parts of Multnomah, Clackamas, Marion, Yamhill, Washington, and Polk counties – 44% of the inhabitants of Oregon. Founded in 1888 as the Willamette Falls Electric Company, the company has been an independent company for most of its existence, though was briefly owned by the Houston-based Enron Corporation from 1997 until 2006 when Enron divested itself of PGE during its bankruptcy.
Eastern Oregon is a region of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is not an officially recognized geographic entity; thus, the boundaries of the region vary according to context. It is sometimes understood to include only the eight easternmost counties in the state; in other contexts, it includes the entire area east of the Cascade Range. Cities in the basic eight-county definition include Baker City, Burns, Hermiston, Pendleton, Boardman, John Day, La Grande, and Ontario. Umatilla County is home to the largest population base in Eastern Oregon, accounting for 42% of the region's residents. Hermiston, located in Umatilla County, is the largest city in the region, accounting for 10% of the population. Major industries include transportation/warehousing, timber, agriculture and tourism. The main transportation corridors are I-84, U.S. Route 395, U.S. Route 97, U.S. Route 26, U.S. Route 30, and U.S. Route 20.
The Treaty with the Kalapuya, etc., also known as the Kalapuya Treaty or the Treaty of Dayton, was an 1855 treaty between the United States and the bands of the Kalapuya tribe, the Molala tribe, the Clackamas, and several others in the Oregon Territory. In it the tribes were forced to cede land in exchange for promised permanent reservation, annuities, supplies, educational, vocational, health services, and protection from ongoing violence from American settlers. The treaty effectively gave over the entirety of the Willamette Valley to the United States and removed indigenous groups who had resided in the area for over 10,000 years. The treaty was signed on January 22, 1855, in Dayton, Oregon, ratified on March 3, 1855, and proclaimed on April 10, 1855.
The Willamette Falls is a natural waterfall on the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, in the United States. It is the largest waterfall in the Northwestern United States by volume, and the seventeenth widest in the world. Horseshoe in shape, it is 1,500 feet (460 m) wide and 40 feet (12 m) high with a flow of 30,849 cu ft/s, located 26 miles (42 km) upriver from the Willamette's mouth. Willamette Falls is a culturally significant site for many tribal communities in the region.
The Clackamas Indians are a band of Chinook of Native Americans who historically lived along the Clackamas River in the Willamette Valley, Oregon.
The Willamette Meteorite, officially named Willamette and originally known as Tomanowos by the Clackamas Chinook Native American tribe, is an iron-nickel meteorite found in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is the largest meteorite found in the United States and the sixth largest in the world. There was no impact crater at the discovery site; researchers believe the meteorite landed in what is now Canada or Montana, and was transported as a glacial erratic to the Willamette Valley during the Missoula Floods at the end of the last Ice Age. It has long been held sacred by indigenous peoples of the Willamette Valley, including the federally recognized Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon (CTGRC).
The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon (CTGR) is a federally recognized tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau. They consist of at least 27 Native American tribes with long historical ties to present-day western Oregon between the western boundary of the Oregon Coast and the eastern boundary of the Cascade Range, and the northern boundary of southwestern Washington and the southern boundary of northern California.
The Willamette Falls Locks are a lock system on the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Opened in 1873 and closed since 2011, they allowed boat traffic on the Willamette to navigate beyond Willamette Falls and the T.W. Sullivan Dam. Since their closure in 2011, the locks have been classified to be in a "non-operational status." In 2023, work began to repair the locks, which are expected to reopen in 2026.
In the first decade of the 2000s, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs sought to build a casino in the Columbia River Gorge. They ended their pursuit of the project in 2013. They considered various sites, as early as 1999; the most extensive plan called for a 60-acre (24 ha) facility with 250 hotel rooms in Cascade Locks, Oregon. The proposed site is within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, and adjacent to a federally designated wilderness area, but within the city limits of Cascade Locks..
The culture of Oregon has had a diverse and distinct character from before European settlement until the modern day. Some 80 Native American tribes were living in Oregon before the establishment of European American settlements and ultimately a widespread displacement of the local indigenous tribes. Trappers and traders were the harbingers of the coming migration of Europeans. Many of these settlers traveled along the nationally renowned Oregon Trail, with estimates of around 53,000 using the trail between 1840 and 1850.
Janelle Sojourner Bynum is an American Democratic politician, and former engineer serving as a member of the Oregon House of Representatives. She currently represents the 39th district, which covers northern Clackamas County, including most of Happy Valley and parts of Oregon City, Milwaukie and the surrounding area.
Portland General Electric's (PGE) T. W. Sullivan Hydroelectric Plant is a hydroelectric dam on the Willamette Falls built between 1888 and 1895. It is the source of the nation's first long-distance power transmission. The plant first opened with Station A in 1889. In 1895 a second powerhouse was built on the same dam, Station B, and Station A was removed. Station B. In 1953 Station B was renamed after the engineer, Thomas Sullivan, who designed it and the nearby paper mills. The Willamette Falls Paper Company was on the northwest bank, whereas the Blue Heron paper mill was across the river in Oregon City. By that year, the plant was generating between 11,000 and 17,500 kilowatts, which it still does today. PGE's Sullivan Plant at Willamette Falls is one of only a few dozen hydro-plants in the country officially designated as "Green." In the 1920s a portion of the paper mill was put on top of the dam, which is still operating.
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