EAST PORTLAND’S about to get its first homeless shelter, and people are furious.

County and city officials last week announced a plan to house 200 homeless Portlanders in a former sheriff’s office building at NE 122nd and Glisan—a move that would make up for the impending loss of shelter space in downtown Portland.

But no sooner had the announcement been made than two county commissioners, Diane McKeel and Loretta Smith, railed against the proposed building as unsafe. And the next evening, neighbors at a community meeting lashed out at officials, saying it was unfair to house destitute people in their midst.

“How can they do this with a clear conscience?” one woman asked KATU. DIRK VANDERHART


IF YOU THOUGHT outcry over the demise of Portland’s open-air drinking water reservoirs was over, you were flat-out wrong.

As first reported by the Mercury, local water activist and credentialed microbiologist Scott Fernandez sued the City of Portland on July 5. He claims that the city’s move from open-air to covered drinking water storage—mandated by federal rule—will lead to harmful amounts of cancer-causing radon in the city’s water supply.

According to Fernandez, that radon—which is present in groundwater the city pumps—would naturally dissipate in an open reservoir. He’s asking a judge to stop the city from “further impairing the open reservoir system,” and demanding the city fight for a waiver to federal rules. DVH