Reclaiming the Waterfront
Reconnecting a city to water by repurposing a wastewater lagoon in St. Helens, Oregon
Project Summary
Community: St. Helens, Oregon
Technical Assistance: Strategic Action Plan
Former Use: Wastewater Lagoon
Future Use: Developable Land Parcel
In the early 2000s, the timber industries that once drove
economics in St. Helens, Oregon, began to vacate the
area, leaving behind valuable yet blighted waterfront land
along the Columbia River and Multnomah Channel. The
city of St. Helens has been working to cohesively
redevelop this waterfront.
Using a 2015 EPA Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Grant,
St. Helens came up with a plan to reconnect the
community to the waterfront. Stakeholders identified the
redevelopment of a wastewater treatment lagoon that
separates the city from the Multnomah Channel as a
critical component of this vision. The city was interested in
exploring the possibility of repurposing the lagoon as a
disposal facility for nonhazardous sediments from nearby
Portland Harbor as a revenue-positive solution.
The Community's Challenge
To convert the wastewater lagoon into a safe, permitted,
and profitable disposal facility — and ultimately into a
developable land parcel — the city first needed help
navigating the complex regulatory, engineering,
administrative, and stakeholder engagement paths
required for success.
EPA's Land Revitalization Technical Assistance
EPA's Land Revitalization Program provided contractor
technical assistance to develop a strategic action plan for
repurposing the wastewater lagoon. The plan outlines
steps to assess the viability of transitioning the current
lagoon into a developable land parcel, while discussing
local, regional, and statewide opportunities and challenges
associated with the project. The plan specifies design
considerations and buildout options for the non-
hazardous, non-municipal waste landfill. The plan also
presents case studies of several successful landfill
redevelopment projects with similar challenges to St.
Helens, which reveal key lessons to be incorporated into
the lagoon-repurposing project.
With EPA's technical assistance, St. Helens now.' has the
tools to pursue the critical path items and accomplish the
transition from a blighted lagoon to repurposed land.
Regulatory Path
Stakeholder
Engagement Path
Engineering Path
Administrative/Political
Path
—	Interaction between paths
—	Path decision points
	 Ongoing activities	
Schedule for completion of lagoon-repurposing project
For more information, contact Susan Morales, EPA
Region 10 Brownfields Program, at
Morales.Susan@epa.gov.
United States
Environmental Protection
# * Agency
Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization
EPA Pub # 560-F-19-005-U

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