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The Columbia Slough has a reputation for being unclean. The narrow waterway runs parallel to the Columbia River and for decades has been polluted with toxic waste.

It’s been 30 years since Oregon health officials issued an advisory warning people to limit how much fish they ate from the slough. Now, the state is close to finishing up a project that could significantly reduce toxins in one of the waterway’s most polluted areas.

OPB’s April Ehrlich kicks off First Look this morning with a story about how a giant soil mat could ease pollution on the Columbia Slough.

In other news, we have a dispatch from Rep. Cliff Bentz’s stop in The Dalles, where constituents questioned him about cuts to Medicaid. Rep. Val Hoyle also heard an earful in Eugene, where town hall attendees urged her to more strongly condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza.

And temperatures will be near triple-digits today as thousands of runners and walkers take part in Hood To Coast.

Here’s your First Look at Friday’s news.

— Bradley W. Parks

Trapping soil pollution could help Columbia Slough fish — and the people who eat them

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has reached more than two dozen legal settlements with companies responsible for polluting the Columbia Slough with cancer-causing chemicals over the years. DEQ uses settlement funds and grants to do what it can to remove pollutants.

For one of the most-polluted areas, the Moore and Wright Islands Natural Area, it’s trapping toxins underground.

Workers will blanket the underwater soil with a permeable mat layered with sand and gravel in a process called capping. The giant soil mat has a minimum 50-year lifespan and could reduce PCB levels in fish by about 86%. (April Ehrlich)

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4 things to know this morning

• Rep. Cliff Bentz met with constituents in The Dalles this week, where they pressed him on Medicaid cuts, timber revenue and the president’s golf game. (Amelia Templeton)

• While Rep. Van Hoyle answered questions about mail-in ballots, the defunding of arts and humanities and women’s rights at a town hall in Eugene, she was repeatedly interrupted by audience members protesting her refusal to call the war in Gaza a “genocide.” (Sajina Shrestha)

• Hood to Coast, the largest relay race in the world, starts this morning ahead of an extreme heat warning for western Oregon and Southwest Washington. Temperatures could reach up to 103 degrees, putting runners at increased risk of overheating. (Riley Martinez)

• Pendleton residents’ mounting frustrations with homelessness found an outlet at a City Council meeting on Tuesday. Members of a new business-backed group unveiled their plan to remove and incarcerate unhoused residents, which stirred impassioned debate. (Antonio Sierra)

Oregon’s timber counties brace for losses from Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill

On the latest episode of “OPB Politics Now,” we explore the budget crisis facing Northwest timber counties and the complex history of logging, federal lands and politics. (Bryce Dole, April Ehrlich and Andrew Theen)

Listen

Headlines from around the Northwest

• Multnomah County leaders delay proposed Preschool For All funding changes (Tiffany Camhi)

• Will Christine Drazan run for Oregon governor again? A GOP fundraising site suggests yes (Dirk VanderHart)

• White House Border Czar Tom Homan visited Portland this week (Conrad Wilson)

• Amid escalating tribal tensions, Oregon grants $12.5 million to Grand Ronde-led project (Holly Bartholomew)

• Oregon schools were closed for too long during COVID-19 pandemic, former OHA director says (Sage van Wing and Elizabeth Castillo)

• Descendants of WWII internment to revisit Tule Lake to protest erasure (Emma J Nelson)

• Lawsuit claims former Washington Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz mishandled abuse allegations (Emily Fitzgerald)

Listen in on OPB’s daily conversation

Noon and 8 p.m. weekdays on OPB Radio, opb.org and the OPB News app. Today’s planned topics (subject to change):

• Homeless people in the Pacific Northwest talk about their experiences

Superabundant recipe: Southeast Asian-inflected gremolata

You can make herby green sauces like chimichurris and gremolatas out of whatever you’ve got on hand.

In this case, Superabundant writer Heather Arndt Anderson’s garden has provided plenty of parsley and basil, plus gobs of Asian herbs: garlic chives, mint, Vietnamese coriander, shiso, lemongrass and even a fresh lime leaf from a tender new shoot on her potted lime.

The result is an ethnochaotic green sauce that can be used in a variety of ways. (Heather Arndt Anderson)

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News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/08/22/opbs-first-look-its-a-soil-trap/