Oregon Public Broadcasting

Ross Island sits in the middle of the Willamette River, just south of downtown Portland.    There’s a lagoon on the east side that Ross Island Sand and Gravel mined for gravel for decades.

That mining ended in 2005, though the company still runs a gravel crushing facility there.

But last year, Ross Island owner Bob Pamplin donated 45-acres of the island to the city. 

As Pete Springer reports, work began there this week to restore native habitat.

Restoration workers commute to the island by boat and land on a sandy beach.

“The tide’s going out so the boats going to keep drifting back—pull it in just a hair though.”

Lynn Barlow jumps off the boat and walks into the forest.

Lynn Barlow “We’re walking through a patch of blackberry thatch which was just cut yesterday.  And it looks like a disaster area.  But it’s actually really cathartic.”

Barlow is a natural areas supervisor with the Portland Parks and Recreation department.  She points out  some cottonwood and ash trees.

Lynn Barlow “What we’d want to see is more regeneration of those two species, but because a lot of this understory has been thick with blackberry -- Himalayan blackberry -- and other invasive species, that’s kind of precluded the natural regeneration of those species.”

Nearby, other workers are busy with chainsaws.  They’re cutting down non-native plants like holly, laurel, and black locust. 

Jim Schiller supervises that crew.  He’s with the city’s Bureau of Environmental Services.

Schiller says their work will improve wildlife habitat.

Jim Schiller “One of the three things that we’ve really identified out here is the canopy health and clematis climbs up, pulls trees down.  Invasive tree species come in and take up space which are displacing native species.”

As Schiller is talking, two deer leap by in the distance.  He estimates there are 20 to 30 deer on Ross island, along with the occassional coyote.

Great Blue Herons also nest there, and bald eagles showed up about ten years ago.

That’s a big change for an island rumored to have once hosted a brothel.  In fact, ideas for how to use the island date back more than a hundred years. The city once proposed a park with baseball fields and tennis courts.

These days, the focus is on improving wildlife habitat on the island.

Dave McCallister is City Nature Manager for Portland Parks.

Dave McCallister “And with Oaks Bottom and the other areas that we have secured along the river, this area then has sort of evolved into a vision for a wildlife sanctuary, and that is kind of what we’re trying to create now.”

Back in the boat, McCallister explains what will happen to the massive lagoon on the east side of the island—which is more than 300 feet deep in some areas. 

Dave McCallister “The reclamation plan calls for about 415 million cubic yards of clean fill to be deposited here.”

The fill will be provided by Ross Island Sand and Gravel to make the lagoon 125 feet deep.

The company will still have operations on the island—it has a permit to run a gravel crushing facility there through 2023. 

As for public access to the island, that remains up in the air.  The city must develop a management plan under its  deal with the owner of Ross Island before public access is allowed.

McCallister says development of the management plan is not yet funded. But he says there are pros and cons to allowing  public access.

Dave McCallister “Certainly you can love Ross Island, but we don’t want to love it to death.  And we have to be cognizant of that in anything that we view.  And I think the people that have expectations for that—we want to help them understand it as well.”

McCallister says ideas for public access include guided trips and educational tours of the island.

The final management plan for Ross Island, he says, will involve input from the general public.