The People Behind Portland’s Stormwater Ambitions

What happens when infrastructure projects demand engagement from residents?

The day after landing in Portland, Oregon, I met with Seth Healy of the Westside Watershed Resource Center at the Friendly House, a community center in Northwest Portland. We talked about a very small-scale green infrastructure project maintained by volunteers. The council had added a few native plants, like blueblossoms, golden currants, and thimbleberries to the side of the building in spring 2024. 

As we walked around the building and a nearby park, we talked about the effect of small plantings like the ones at Friendly House. He compared it to larger top-down approaches to green infrastructure, like the ones he saw in China when he studied abroad in college. He also compared it to individual residents in Portland planting home gardens (there are a lot of gardens in Portland) and posed an interesting question: Could home gardens be considered infrastructure?

Reporting on stormwater management in a place during its dry season is hard. When I started planning my dates in the field, I realized I wouldn’t be able to report directly on flooding events and would need to refine the story’s direction. 

Telling stories about green infrastructure on a community level was a challenge, as my writing often tends to include more technical descriptions of policy initiatives. Of course, there was a lot to explore in that regard—questions around land use, cooperation between agencies, and maintenance.

But the most compelling story, which became clear as I walked around Portland, and talked to people involved in the world of green infrastructure, was the one that took place at the community level. A street fair that attempted to reimagine an intersection. A dog owner who was upset about not being able to walk his dog through a restored floodplain. A bid to boost community engagement by putting fish hats on bike helmets.

In my many tours of Portland’s green infrastructure, I noticed that Portland is a remarkably green city. Upon asking people why that is, I would sometimes get responses along the lines of “a lot grows here.” However, further conversation would often betray deeper, more cultural reasons.

Carlos Nunez has volunteered for Depave, a nonprofit that tears up pavement to create green space, for a decade. I asked him why he volunteers for the organization.

“I truly believe that we can stop a bunch of runoff pollutants from going into our water,” he said. “I just love it, it’s a big community.”