About the Project

Enhancing riparian habitat on Kellogg Creek

A portion of the Kellogg Creek bank which the project is helping Milwaukie Presbyterian Church improve.

The Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Transit Project is helping to restore native habitat to a stretch of the Kellogg Creek shoreline. The project designated $6,000 to help Milwaukie Presbyterian Church (MPC) restore 3,000 square feet of creek wetlands and mitigate impacts of the project bridge set to be constructed over Kellogg Creek.

The riparian enhancement is guided by MPC, which aligns with the North Clackamas Urban Watersheds Council’s area goals and complements the City of Milwaukie’s Kellogg-for-Coho Initiative to remove Kellogg dam and provide fish renewed waterway access. Shirley Stageberg, MPC volunteer project manager for the church’s Wetlands Restoration Mitigation Project, said they picked the most difficult area along the creek for the enhancement work.

“It was the first time we’ve been able to hire a professional crew and it made a world of difference,” said Stageberg. “They cut back overgrown weedy trees and pulled out hard-to-reach ivy that was mixed in with the native snowberries where we could not spray. This terrific work will make it much easier for our older volunteers to maintain the area.”

Located at 2416 SE Lake Road, MPC sits on five acres near Kellogg Creek. Several years ago, the church undertook a major effort to improve its 3.5 acres of natural habitat with the support of small grants and generous community spirit. Volunteers from MPC, the Portland Waldorf School and the Boy Scouts have pulled invasive species such as ivy, clematis, and Himalayan blackberry, which were choking out native plants. Milwaukie High School students are studying the wetlands.

After crews cleared the TriMet-funded section of the bank, the snowberries thrived. MPC plans to plant native species such as white oak, cottonwoods, maples and red osier dogwood, but they will wait to see which species naturally return in the next growing season now that site conditions are prime.

MPC wants to restore the site to the way it was 200 years ago and provide favorable habitat for an array of birds, attract beaver and ensure non-contaminated water flows into the river when the salmon runs are restored in Kellogg Creek. “My dream is that we’ll create a wave with these improvements,” says Stageberg. “Once people see what we’ve done and how beautiful it turns out, that they’ll be inspired to do the same.”

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Protecting Birds

U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Specialist Matt Alex works to protect birds from construction activity.

March 1 to September 1 is bird nesting season in the Pacific Northwest. During this time, it's common to see Matt Alex surveying trees with binoculars or raising extension poles with reverse mirrors to peek inside newly formed nests along the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Transit Project alignment.

Alex is a wildlife specialist at U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Wildlife Services—he works with the project to ensure compliance with federal law protecting birds. With the exception of invasive species like pigeons, starlings and house sparrows, all wild birds, chicks and eggs in Oregon are protected.

Tasked with avoiding impacts to active nests where the project must remove trees and shrubs, Alex's work requires a lot of walking and careful observation. "I cover the entire project to watch bird behavior and look for contrasting colors and textures in the trees," he remarked. "My goal is to catch and remove nests during the early building stages before any eggs are there." Alex monitors the sites at least once a week but in places where he detects a lot of bird activity he may return every other day to disrupt nests in process.

Alex's work actually begins in February, when he clears out old nests to assess the level of bird activity in a given area. With so many different types of vegetation along the alignment, Alex finds that some areas are more prone to bird nesting than others. In the larger sections of low vegetation, Alex walks through the site in 50-foot intervals to cover everything thoroughly.

Alex works directly with TriMet and project construction contractors to specifically identify the clearing limits so he knows exactly where he needs to go and which areas to monitor.

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Removing derelict piling from the Willamette River

Thirty-three tons of derelict, contaminated pilings were removed from the Willamette River as part of project environmental mitigation work.

In conjunction with Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Bridge construction, TriMet is conducting environmental mitigation projects to improve Willamette River habitat. One of these projects was the removal of derelict pilings along the the east bank of the river just south of the St. Johns Bridge. Although they once supported structures related to river use, the pilings had deteriorated from decades of abandonment in public waterway and compromised essential native fish habitat.

Since being abandoned, the pilings had served as perches for fish-eating birds in a popular spot for out-migrating juvenile fish. The pilings also leached contaminants into the Willamette and inhibited the natural reclamation of shallow water habitats critical to a variety of native fish.

In total, this mitigation work removed 300 wooden piles from over 20,000 square feet of shallow water, equaling approximately 33 tons and 140 cubic yards of materials.

Portland-based Advanced American Construction (AAC) performed the work in the summer of 2011. The condition of the pilings and the rocky river bottom required deployment of divers to cut the pilings at or below the mud line and cap them with clean sand material where possible. AAC used a turbidity curtain and an absorbent boom around the work area to contain debris and protect the river.

The cut pilings were sent by barge to SP Newsprint in Newberg where they were incinerated for energy recovery. In addition to the piling removal, TriMet is a partner with the City of Portland's habitat restoration project along the western bank of the Willamette River adjacent to South Waterfront. That project will provide approximately 25,500 square feet of shall-water beach habitat and 17,400 square feet of re-naturalized riverbank.

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