In Portland, a battle between preservation and more electric power
Lily Roby
PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) — The largest city park in the continental United States, Forest Park is part of Portland’s heritage and identity.
For nearly a decade, the urban forest has also been the flashpoint of a debate between conservationists and the state’s biggest electric utility, Portland General Electric or PGE.
But the battle is drawing down, as city land-use officials debate whether to greenlight the proposal or kill it altogether. After more than 600 people submitted public comments on the project — including more than 200 in a single weekend — observers expect a final decision in the yearslong fight by early March.
Faced with increased demand, PGE in 2015 announced plans to build transmission lines in part of the 5,200-acre forest in Northwest Portland. The city’s population has boomed in recent years, and without the upgrades, the company says Portlanders could face increased outages as early as 2028.
To many Portlanders, the proposal is a nightmare that would damage a wild area beloved far beyond the city. Its current plans would fill two wetlands, disrupt streams used by creatures like the at-risk northern red-legged frog and destroy 376 trees, including at least six that are more than 150 years old.
It would be an irreplaceable loss, Carole Hardy, a forest ecologist for the Forest Park Conservancy, said in a public comment opposing the project.
Even some city agencies have come out against it. On behalf of Portland Parks & Recreation’s 16 board members, urban designer Suenn Ho provided written testimony against the project, arguing that strengthening the energy grid shouldn’t come at the expense of public forestlands.
Portland Permitting & Development recommended killing the project, saying in a January report that the plan didn’t meet land-use standards and would have significant negative impacts in the area. PGE representatives have pushed back on those conclusions. “We appreciate city staff’s diligence throughout this process,” Kristen Sheeran, the company’s vice president of policy and resource planning, said in a statement, but “we disagree with their conclusions and look forward to examining the issues.”
The plan to build a quarter-mile of power lines through Forest Park is just one part of a five-phase operation.
Known as the Harborton Reliability Project, it aims to upgrade the city’s outdated electrical system, much of which was built in the 1970s. Previous phases of the plan included a new substation along the Willamette River and upgrading a transmission line on the edge of Forest Park.
For Phase Three — the latest and most controversial part of the plan — PGE is currently seeking approval from the city’s Land Use Hearings Office. With such approval, it hopes to start construction in Forest Park this summer and finish it by around 2027.
Portland Metro Chamber, the city’s chamber of commerce, has backed PGE in its bid for a permit. In a letter to city officials, it said the proposed upgrades struck a “responsible balance between the critical need for grid reliability and environmental stewardship” and would help “create opportunity and advance economic well-being for all who live and work in the Greater Portland region.”
Still, for some Portland residents, any development in the city’s famous Forest Park is a nonstarter.
They’ve consistently turned out to voice opposition to the project, including at the latest land-use hearing on the project in January.
The meeting was held over Zoom — but a group of around 30 opponents opted to gather in person. The Sierra Club’s Oregon chapter, working with the Bird Alliance of Oregon, offered its offices in central east Portland as a space for people to gather and call in.
Critics of the Forest Park project often cite the Toth Report, a study conducted in 2022 by engineering consultant Toth & Associates to explore alternate locations for new transmission lines.
Those critics say PGE never fully investigated alternatives and intentionally delayed release of the commissioned study. The Toth Report didn’t reach the public until October 2024.
“PGE’s failure to be fully transparent about their plans for expanding transmission lines … raises red flags about the utility’s interest in community resilience,” the Forest Park Conservancy said in a statement. Meanwhile, the Bird Alliance of Oregon argues that if there are in fact other feasible routes, building transmission lines in Forest Park would violate the park’s 1985 management plan intended to prevent habitat loss.
But there are no viable alternatives, PGE representatives once again argued at the January hearing. They said two other locations were considered but ultimately ruled out due to concerns like landslide hazards, zoning issues and proximity to railroads and pipelines.
At Sierra Club's offices, community members scoffed at the idea that they had to choose between more frequent blackouts and construction in Forest Park. Besides, the proposal was just plain wrong, said Sarah Wagstaff, a local tour guide who often shows visitors around Forest Park.
“We can make 900-page documents about land use, but we need to think about it in the terms of our own children,” Wagstaff testified at the meeting. She said she was speaking on behalf of wildlife that couldn’t speak for itself. “If we said, ‘Well, we’re just going to tear down 400 buildings with families still in them,’ then we would look at it differently.”
As the hearing came to a close, those at the Sierra Club gathering remained optimistic they could save Forest Park from development. In just a matter of weeks, they might learn whether their years of activism hold any sway with city officials.
“I work in Forest Park,” Wagstaff said in an interview during the hearing. “I found love in Forest Park.” She acknowledged PGE was trying to be sensitive about environmental impacts. Still, she said, Portland’s iconic urban forest was too special to mess with. “It’s just not a place to extract what we want from.”