Current Issue PDFEPA Region 10 administrator praises Tribe's healing efforts at Tumwata Village
By Dean Rhodes
Publications Coordinator
OREGON CITY – Environmental Protection Agency Region 10 Administrator Casey Sixkiller toured the Tribe’s Tumwata Village on Monday, July 10, and praised the Grand Ronde Tribe’s intergovernmental partnerships and efforts to heal the land.
Sixkiller, who was in Oregon to tour the Moore and Wright Natural Area on the Columbia Slough, was invited by Tribal Council member Kathleen George to visit Tumwata Village to see the clean-up and restoration work the Grand Ronde Tribe has been performing since buying the former Blue Heron Paper Mill property in 2019.
George is also chair of the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission.
“This is particularly powerful work for us since this is the site of one of our traditional villages before our people were removed to Grand Ronde,” George said in her invitation to Sixkiller.
The site was home to the Charcowah village of the Clowewalla (Willamette band of Tumwaters) and the Kosh-huk-shix village of Clackamas people, who were both forcibly removed from Willamette Falls and relocated to the Grand Ronde Reservation in the 1850s.
George was joined by Tribal employees in taking Sixkiller on the 50-minute tour, including Historic Preservation Manager Briece Edwards, Communications Manager Sara Thompson and Engineering and Planning Manager Ryan Webb.
Also in attendance were Environmental Protection Agency Oregon Operations Director Anthony Barber, EPA Strategic Communications Advisor Jason Kelly, Department of Environmental Quality Commissioner Jennifer Flynt and DEQ Northwest Region Administrator Christine Svetkowich.
Since purchasing the property for $15.25 million in August 2019, the Tribe released its vision statement for the site in March 2021, started environmental remediation, launched the first phase of building demolition in September 2021, secured federal support by obtaining an $800,000 EPA grant in May 2021 and $2 million in federal funding included in the appropriations bill signed into law in March 2022, and started a third round of demolition work in March of this year. The Tribe also renamed the site Tumwata Village after the Native word for Willamette Falls.
The 23-acre site has been used for numerous industrial purposes since the 19th century and included more than 50 buildings before demolition work began.
“Our hearts are very full when we get to be here and we get to show our friends this place,” George said in welcoming Sixkiller. “This is a place that is very dear to us and our hearts, and was very dear to our ancestors. It means a lot to us that you are here today.
“We’re going to really showcase and celebrate the partnership between the Grand Ronde Tribe, the state of Oregon and our federal partners at the Environmental Protection Agency about what we can do when we come together to heal a place, to clean up a place and to restore it; to restore it to usefulness to people and to the relationship of people to place.”
George explained the history of the Tumwata Village site before Webb discussed the rehabilitation efforts and Edwards talked about the history of Native peoples at Willamette Falls since time immemorial.
“As Grand Ronde people, we see that underneath this surface, under this industrial decay, we know that this is the site of one of the villages of our ancestors,” George said. “A whole lot of people lived here year-round.”
While discussing rehabilitation work, Webb said the Tribe has occasionally been surprised by what has been found, including two buried railroad tankers that were being used as underground storage tanks.
“It’s those kind of surprises that we have been finding throughout the site,” Webb said. “You’re having to deal with how do you get that out of the ground? It’s fun, little surprises that always make it interesting.”
Sixkiller was appointed regional administrator for the agency’s Region 10 in May 2022 by President Joseph Biden. He oversees the agency’s work to protect human health and the environment in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska and 271 Tribal nations.
Before joining the EPA, Sixkiller was deputy mayor of Seattle and was chief operating officer for King County, Wash. He is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, graduating from Seattle Public Schools and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
Toward the end of the tour, Sixkiller said that the Tumwata Village rehabilitation project is one of the largest occurring in Region 10.
“As Native people, there is power in place,” Sixkiller said. “I think this whole project symbolizes that. Since time immemorial, this has been a place where Native people have come together not just to be in community with each other, but really to be whole. For a long time, that was taken away from them. To be out here now and really feel the power of what this place was and what it is going to be returned to is really, really remarkable.
“And I love this theme of healing … healing the land. It is such a western way of thinking about reclaiming, repurposing and redeveloping, and to hear it from a Native perspective of how what reclaiming really means is healing and bringing it back to what it needs to be for this community is not something you hear very often.”
Sixkiller added that he was “impressed” by the partnership between the Grand Ronde Tribe and state of Oregon, and added that the $800,000 EPA grant became available because of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.
“There are sites like this all over the United States,” Sixkiller said, “but this one has incredibly special meaning and I’m really excited to see what the future holds here.”
The tour wrapped up with George and Webb showing renderings of what Tumwata Village will look like once rehabilitation work and redevelopment concludes.
“To move this work forward, we have to have a mutual understanding and appreciation that we are going to be figuring this out and sharing the information as we go,” George said. “But that is infinitely better than this site continuing to languish, which is what really happened for decades. This is the way to make progress and move forward. We’re really thrilled about that and have been diligently working on that, and at the same time that we develop plans on how we are going to heal this place and turn it into a place of community, which is what it was when our people lived here.”