The Willamette Falls Trust aims to bring public access to the falls through the Inter-Tribal Public Access Project.

As the United States District Court for the District of Oregon weighs whether to allow Portland General Electric to condemn about 5 acres of land owned by the state of Oregon surrounding Willamette Falls, the Willamette Falls Trust is asking the Oregon Legislature for funding to purchase adjacent property owned by PGE around the falls.

The Trust, which is composed of four regional tribes with historical ties to the falls, has partnered with PGE to restore access to the falls through the Inter-Tribal Public Access Project.

“The Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians (Siletz Tribe) is pleased to support Willamette Falls Trust’s request for state funding to enable the acquisition of the Portland General Electric property known as Moore’s Island and the surrounding uplands,” Siletz Tribal Chairman Delores Pigsley wrote in an April letter to members of the Legislature’s Joint Ways and Means Committee, the committee that establishes state budget policy.

Willamette Falls Trust Executive Director and former Oregon governor Kate Brown said the exact land boundaries for the project have not been determined, but the trust is eyeing a portion of Moore’s Island — which is separated from the main shore by the Willamette Falls navigational locks — and the uplands area along the river bank and hill. In total, the trust hopes to use about 50 acres along the river for the project.

Because the Legislature is still in the middle of deciding its budget for the coming two fiscal years — a process which had a huge wrench thrown into it this week when the state’s latest economic forecast was released predicting the state will have about $756 million less than originally anticipated — Brown said who would own the property is still up in the air.

“It’s unlikely that the trust would be the direct owner,” Brown said. “Those are the conversations we’re having with the Legislature right now.”

PGE and the trust first announced their partnership for the Inter-Tribal Public Access Project to bring access to the West Linn side of the falls in 2023, about two years after the trust’s initial plan for the Willamette Falls Legacy Project on the opposite side of the river fell apart. The Legacy Project, which aimed to build a riverwalk along the falls in Oregon City, began to crumble after the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, an initial member of the trust, withdrew from the group and the project.

The Grand Ronde is now moving forward with its own project on the Oregon City side of Willamette Falls. The Grand Ronde have called their project, located at the former Blue Heron Paper Mill, tumwata village.

Plans for the Inter-Tribal Public Access Project include public walkways, viewing structures and interpretive spaces for community events and cultural programming.

Currently, Portland General Electric owns a large portion of the land on the West Linn side of the falls, where the power company operates a hydroelectric facility. The company is not only partners with the four tribal partners of the trust — the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians — for the public access project, but those tribes have also supported PGE in its effort to condemn the 5 acres of state-owned property surrounding the falls. Brown clarified that the trust itself has no part in that case.

The Grand Ronde, which built a fishing platform within the proposed condemnation property, is the only regional tribe to oppose PGE’s condemnation efforts, which a federal court judge will rule on in the next few months.

All five tribes have deep historical and cultural ties to Willamette Falls, where they fished, traded and conducted spiritual practices for generations before they were removed from the land by the United States government in 1855.

In their request for the Oregon Legislature to support the public access project, leaders of the Umatilla tribe mentioned the important and painful history of their ancestors at the falls.

“Through our Treaty of 1855 with the United States, 12 Stat. 945, our ancestors ceded millions of acres of land to the United States to, among other things, secure and maintain access to tribal First Foods – water, fish, roots and berries, and the habitats and environmental conditions that support and sustain them, then, now and forever,” Umatilla Indian Reservation Board of Trustees Chairman Gary Burke wrote to the Joint Ways and Means Committee. “We believe the purchase of the PGE lands by the State ensures access once again to this sacred site and to our traditional First Foods. The CTUIR are forever connected to Willamette Falls as well, by the tragic hanging of our tribal members, the Five Cayuse Men on June 3, 1850. This event is forever embedded in our history and remains marked by ceremony to honor these men.”

Brown emphasized that the trust should have a clearer picture of the project’s future in June after the conversations about this request play out in Salem and the Legislature officially adopts the state budget.

Moving forward, Brown said one of the trust’s main focuses will be community engagement.

“We have an extraordinary opportunity here. This is a once in a generation, once in a lifetime, once in a century, opportunity to create something very special: public access to the falls,” Brown said.