A new bridge on the Willamette Update

  The river construction window for the Willamette was put in place for the safety of the wildlife in (largely fish migration) and around the river, consideration for recreational use, and commercial concerns. That window, from July 1st until Halloween, has seen a flurry of action. Unfortunately, I'm missing a lot of it. I spent a little over two weeks in San Francisco for the Photoshop & You store and then another two weeks on vacation in Southern California and along the coast following Highway 101. Luckily, I can watch time-lapse videos of the construction, either on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Now that we have reached the half-way point for this year's river construction period, more information is being released. The project is putting together informative videos that include interviews with the designers and decision makers behind this new work. Here's what we have so far, with more to come:


Episode 1: Bridge Location and Type

Episode 2: Episode 2: Why a Cable-Stayed Bridge Design

(Don't you love it when they choose a poster frame like this? Awkward Facial Position)

Happy Hunting,
Brett

Portland's New Bridge

  Due to concerns with yearly migration patterns, there is a limited window in which construction can take place within the Willamette River. This time period starts on July 1st. And construction on the new bridge will accept no slack. Workers have already started moving barges and derricks into place, two weeks ahead of time, to take full advantage of the limited time available to them.

  To ensure the safety of all, whether those working or having fun on the river, no wake and no entry zones have been established (as detailed in the map on right, provided by TriMet). The zones are in effect starting yesterday, June 15th, until the end of the world in December 2012.

  The construction of the (unofficially named) Caruthers Bridge, will start with the building of the two columns that will support the main structure. This will involve sinking two tubes-like cofferdams into the river, which will serve to keep the water out of the construction site and likely as the molds for the columns themselves. Before laying the foundation, the silt, sand, and organic materials that make up a river bottom must be removed  clear to the bedrock in order for there to be a solid mass to attach the columns to.

  I plan on keeping a weekly photo update of the construction through out, starting in two weeks.

Happy hunting,
Brett

Life circles on itself

  I was born in the L.A. basin, atop a hill that overlooks one of them most polluted areas of the world. As I grew older I moved inland, back toward the east of my parents (who were born in Michigan). As you move east from the LA area, you quickly head into the Great Basin, a self-contained basin, one that doesn't reach the ocean. All the water drains inward to landlocked seas such as the Great Salt Lake in Utah or Salton Sea in Southern California. I grew up on the beach or in the desert. Those areas that have little to no rain fall, where there are stream and river beds without water. Flash floods are more common than running water.

 When I moved to the Pacific North West, one of the first things I noticed was the breadth and diversity of life. There were bugs everywhere, of many different types. Those bugs then fed larger life forms, like birds. There were trees and bushes and plants of amazing assortments. Life was present, green was everywhere. It was completely unlike the desert, with it's five or so different life forms. There was diversity here and I fell in love with it. 

  Yet, this diversity and abundance of life came with a great cost. That price was that everyone wanted a piece of it. When Lewis and Clark, and other pioneers came to the Oregon Territory, the found a similar abundance of life, but at a much grander scale than we see today. Trappers were already in the region, capturing beavers for fashionable wear in the east. Natives relied on the abundance for their daily lives. But in came progress.

  Within a hundred years, areas had been clear cut, animal populations cut to single digit percentages of their original numbers. One very sad example of this is the Salmon. Recently, I watched this Nature episode from PBS. It's almost heart breaking to see a species brought to it's knees. The way that they have been hobbled in the Columbia Basin is not humane. Yet, it is the same power that made the Salmon flourish as made hydroelectric power a mainstay of the area. More than four hundred dams dot the various tributaries of the Columbia, a river whose mountainous reach takes more advantage of gravity than most others. 

  The advantages we have taken in this area, whether for farming or for fishing, have taken their toll, and the Salmon have suffered more than most. The best that science can offer is not on the same scale that nature, untamed, can manage. We are destroying that which gives us abundance without giving enough back. We profit at the cost of the future. We profit at the cost of the past. And while there may be abundance for the present, temporarily, all we really leave behind is debt. One that cannot be paid off but in sacrifice. 

How the Earth was Made

Mt. St. Helens in Google Earth

One of my favorite TV shows, being the nerd/geek/geology-phile that I am, is The History Channel's How the Earth was Made. It takes the long view of history, going in depth on subjects like plate tectonics, erosion, and climate. Forces the Earth has been generating and enduring for four and a half billion years. The original show looked into the life history of the planet, from star dust to life ark. The series that sprung from that (currently with two seasons) has episodes that focus on famous natural features, from the Grand Canyon to Mount Everest to Loch Ness.

I have done a fair amount of reading on how the Columbia Basin was formed. Glaciation, mega-floods, clashing continents, and basalt flows are just some of the creative/destructive powers that it took to make such a unique place on earth. There's enough geologic upheaval in this area to fuel a new episode of the show, should it continue into a third-season. But there was an episode about a feature within the basin. It stands tall on the horizon, easily viewable from Portland. While Mt. Hood gets most of the attention, it's Mt. St. Helens that makes all the noise.

I've taken several trips up to see this massive mountain that so famously blew her top. Just a little over a year after my birth, the side of the mountain bulged and then erupted out, sideways. Scouring the surrounding hills, flattening forests, and flooding the land it caused incredible devastation. Yet the mountain gave warnings that something big was about to happen. This invited scientists in for a short period of study, much of what was learned saved lives in other parts of the world and makes for interesting television.

The ancient Romans believed the volcanic activity of Italy was the result of the forges of Vulcan, the smith of the gods. The Hawaiians thought that their island chain had been created by hot-headed Pele. It's taken hundreds of years of study, but we now know much about how volcanoes form and function.

We are probably all familiar with how the crust of our Earth is made of titanic plates. These clods of dirt, though formed of many types of rock, are largely composed of granite. This particular stone floats on top of the heavier materials that make up the Earth's fiery mantle.But the act of a solid floating on a liquid is not one of levitation, rather it is one of displacement. The chunks of the Earth's crust are heavy and gravity would like them to sink. Like getting into a bath tub and watching the water level rise, all of that hot lava below is also trying to rise, squeezed into every nook and cranny of our imperfectly formed planet.

The crust is full of holes that have have been filled with magma. The weight of the crust pushing down is met with the resistance of the mantle already there, which creates enough pressure to build mountains. These mountains, volcanoes, are like a microcosm of the plates, they float on a lake of lava. The weight of the mountain is causing it to try to sink into this lake, but the liquid in the lake has no where to go but up. These forces find a balance and the mountain sleeps. But if one weakness is found, the lava will exploit it and make an explosive get away.

Approaching Mt. St. Helens in September, 2007

While these forces may remain in balance for years, decades, even centuries, Mt. St. Helens is a very active volcano due to a fatal, balance shattering trait. The May, 1980 eruption taught some interesting lessons, most importantly that the mountain was rotten to the core. Mountains are funny things, they seem invincible and immobile. They modify the weather around them, creating snow and rain. While much of the snow melt and rain waters run off the mountain side and eventually join the Columbia, the rest of it soaks into the ground. And like rain water seeping into your home's foundations and wreaking havoc, the same is more true of volcanoes. The problems lie in the minerals that make up a volcano. Famously, sulfur is a smelly component of volcanic activity. As precipitation percolates into the heart of the mountain, it heats up, picks up sulfur and heads back to the surface. This literally undermines the roots of the mountain, causing internal erosion that compromises the integrity of the structure. As the stones rot they can no longer hold back the incredible powers of the magma below. Eventually something's got to give, and when it does you'd better be prepared to get out of the way.

So long as hot lava lies below and rain falls from above, volcanoes like Mt. St. Helens are likely to blow off their decayed tops and play devastation with the surrounding landscape and river basin from time to time. While the land around us may seem strong, like the mountain, we must remember that the Earth is constantly in motion, just like a river. It moves slowly most of the time, but occasionally it make great, destructive leaps.

Additional images from my 2007 trip to Mt. St. Helens.

Happy hunting,
Brett

Transcending time

On Friday, the Columbia was poisoned. Fuel oil overflowed the tanks and deck of the cargo ship Transcenden Time into the river. About a hundred gallons of Texas Tea was added at the confluence of the Willamette River. While that might sound like a lot, let's put a little perspective on the matter. We're talking about little more than 13 cubic feet of material, which would likely fit within your home refrigerator. While the river doesn't always see oil added in this kind of concentration, I'm sure every rain fall washes far more oil from our roads into the water. But this isn't the first spill the Columbia has seen:

• 1978 - Toyota Maru - 30,000 gallons
• 1983 - Blue Magpie - 80,000 gallons
• 1984 - Mobil Oil - 200,000 gallons
• 1991 - Tai Chung - 11,000 gallons
• 1993 - Southern Pacific - 5,000 gallons
• 1993 - MV Central - 3,000 gallons
• 1994 - An Ping 6 - 3,000 gallons
• 2009 - Black Hawk - 150 gallons
• 2011 - Davy Crockett - currently unknown but 1,450 gallons have been cleaned up.

By comparison, the Exxon Valdez dumped about 25,000,000 gallons into Prince William Sound and last year's BP oil spill resulted in 206,000,000 gallons of oil being added to the Gulf of Mexico.

Oregon's DEQ considers any spill over 42 gallons to be a major issue. Site response, containment, cleanup isn't free, and those responsible for the mess foot the cleaning bill. About $300,000 in fines where levied against the owners of the An Ping 6.

Such spills may be caused by damage to vessels, the pumping out of contaminated bilge water, and the failure of equipment designed to prevent this sort of dirtying. These spills are made up of hydrocarbons that might be in the form of crude oil, mechanical lubricants, or diesel fuel. Oil slicks can cause health issues for all living things, often resulting in the failure of internal organs and hypothermia. While birds and fish make up the vast numbers of casualties, mammals who come into contact with the fouled waters are just as vulnerable. Submarine plant life also suffers due to the oil cutting off supplies of sun light. The oils can stick to beaches and take months to years to clean up.

While the up front effects of such spills can be tragic, geologically speaking, there Earth, and the Columbia Basin, have been through much worse. These are things that can be recovered from, the Columbia will heal and live to flow another day.

Happy Hunting,
Brett

Purple Flat Top

The Inland Northwest, sometimes referred to as the Columbia Basin, is an area near the northeastern corner of Washington near Spokane. It has been shaped by titanic forces throughout history, not the least of which is the works of humans. It is a hard land that has developed a great diversity of trees, birds, and personalities. It is here that Jack Nisbet traveled to after graduating college. He went to find a place, what he found were people, and he found himself.

The book Purple Flat Top doesn’t specify when it takes place, it dances around the subject of time. From the state of the economy and the changes in technology I’m guessing this book takes place throughout the decade of the 70s. I’m not local to the Inland Northwest, so the names of mining operations that supported settlements are unfamiliar to me. Perhaps, if I knew the date when Corporation A had taken over the business that drove the local economy, and closed it down, such a red letter day would standout on my calendar. The only disaster of which Mr. Nisbet writes that I know takes place in my lifetime is that of Mt. St. Helens erupting.

There is no central narrative to this book. Instead it is a string of unconnected episodes of Jack’s life full of random jobs and eccentric locals. Instead, what we have is a series of illustrated portraits of people who have shaped, and been shaped by, the land they living. They have become characters, people with interesting traits, flaws, strengths, passions, pains, and conflicts. Sherlock Holmes would often tell Watson that there is nothing so extravagant as the mundane, that no authors wild imaginings could compare to what happens every day behind closed doors. This were Jack’s neighbors, friends, and co-workers, yet they are drawn so perfectly that we feel that these are our memories, that this is our story.

Happy Hunting,

Brett N

P.S. The distance travelled of my imaginary toy boat, from my bridge over Beaverton Creek to the Pacific Ocean, is 176 miles.

Map of Beaverton to the Sea

If a drop of rain, or a piece of trash, or a toy boat enters Beaverton Creek near my house, it will eventually make it out to the Pacific Ocean (assuming my toy boat is not picked out of the water by some meddling kids). While I've described that path in the past, here today I illustrate it.

The map has been numbered to label the converging bodies of water, as well as some of the areas I've already posted about.

1. Beaverton Creek, which flows into the...

2. Rock Creek, which flows into the...

3. Tualatin River, which flows into the...

4. Willamette River, which flows into the...

5. Columbia River, which flows into the Pacific Ocean.

6. Clatsop Spit.

7. Astoria.

8. Nehalem Basin.

9. Sauvie Island.

10 Tualatin Valley.

Happy Hunting,
Brett