Lake Oswego river dock caught in environmental squeeze

Plan for Foothills Park project on hold as feds revoke city permit

By Lee van der Voo

The Lake Oswego Review, Sep 11, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (7 Reader comments)

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A federal agency revoked Lake Oswego’s permit for a boat dock on the Willamette River Monday, calling for a fresh look at the dock’s potential impacts to endangered species.

The suspension of the permit for the city’s public dock in Foothills Park comes one month after a related lawsuit was filed by the Northwest Environmental Defense Center.

The nonprofit advocacy group is based at Lewis & Clark College. It sued both the National Marine Fisheries Service and the United States Army Corp of Engineers Aug. 8 for their roles in approving the dock, claiming both violated federal laws meant to protect endangered species.

In the lawsuit, the Northwest Environmental Defense Center said the federal agencies failed to consider the dock’s impacts to fish habitat before approving the dock. Both are charged with using a biological opinion from 2004 to assess those impacts, an opinion crafted one year before the proposed dock area was listed as critical habitat for four fish species.

The city of Lake Oswego is scheduled to install the dock at the end of October. It is currently being constructed in another location.

Mayor Judie Hammerstad said Wednesday the city is not alarmed by the suspension. She said she has been in touch with federal officials about the need for more analysis of the dock’s potential impacts on fish habitat.

“They have asked us to stop work for the time being but we weren’t really doing any work,” she said. “The odds are it will be OK and we’ll be able to go ahead.”

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