Portland neighbors frustrated with rail company as trash along the tracks festers

PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — Like many of his neighbors, Israel Banks is tired and fed up with what's happening just feet away from his backyard.

"We've had them come back here," said Banks. "We've caught them on our camera looking above our fence, so we let this overgrow just to keep them back."

Banks says the blackberry bushes over his fence serve as a buffer between his property and a homeless camp hidden among the trees. It's been there for years, and so has the garbage. You can't miss it spilling down the hillside along North Columbia Boulevard. Most of the trash is on Union Pacific Railroad property.

Frank Moscow isn't surprised by the blight.

"It's exactly what I would expect given the lack of response by Union Pacific Railroad, unfortunately," said Moscow.

Moscow is the founder of Adopt One Block, a nonprofit network of nearly 10,000 volunteers who clean up our streets. He knows trash -- where it gets dumped and where it festers. And he's been keeping track of it on railroad property for a long time, paying even closer attention since last fall.

"Gov. [Tina] Kotek said on Oct. 30 that she talked directly with the CEO of Union Pacific Railroad and was going to get immediate results from that conversation," said Moscow. "Here we are four and a half months later and there's our immediate results."

Moscow gestured to the piles of debris on the Union Pacific Property. KATU News wanted to talk with Kotek about the partnership she announced with Union Pacific to see how it's going. Where have the cleanups happened? Is anyone keeping tabs on the railroad and holding them to their promise? Kotek's office sent us an email saying:

On October 30, 2023, the Governor announced she was launching a partnership with Union Pacific to address trash and litter along their properties. Since that time, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), TriMet, City of Portland PEMO, Portland Metro, the Portland Police Bureau (PPB), and Union Pacific (UP) launched a collaborative strategy across agencies and jurisdictions.

This strategic collaboration entails illegal camping/dumping mitigation, strategic work to guide camping populations to appropriate recovery resources and infrastructure enhancement to prevent repeat dumping and other problems where possible.

Kotek's office included a map of prioritized areas that includes the property of North Columbia Boulevard.

A lot of talk about working together, but no real proof anything's been done. So, we asked Union Pacific. They wouldn't do an interview, but they did send a statement saying:

Homelessness is a challenging issue and a growing social problem that state and local governments are struggling to get their arms around. Despite efforts to keep our tracks clear and safe, illegal camping is happening on Union Pacific property, putting lives at risk and resulting in some people treating our property as a dump site.

We have been working with the city of Portland to clean up the site off North Columbia Boulevard and continue to find ways to address this ongoing issue.

Portland isn't the only city struggling to deal with trash along the tracks. It got so bad in Eugene, the city started fining Union Pacific in 2018, and they racked up more than $200,000 in fines before the city put a lien on the railroad's property last year. Moscow said he'd like Portland to do the same.

"I would love to see jurisdictional bodies use their authority to compel the large landowners to take care of this mess," said Moscow.

We wanted to ask Mayor Ted Wheeler if he'd consider it, but he wasn't available for an interview. His spokesperson told us they meet regularly with the governor's team and are working together to address trash and litter citywide. We also reached out to the city's housing authority, Home Forward, to ask about the trash spilling from Union Pacific property onto land managed by Home Forward. It's piling up right next to community gardens and fruit trees in the New Columbia neighborhood. A spokesperson sent us a statement, saying:

We have been working in coordination with the New Columbia Homeowners Association and Income Property Management for roughly two years to address the issues of overgrowth and debris on the adjacent parcel, which is owned by Union Pacific. The safety and well-being of our residents is our highest priority. In an effort to mitigate the impacts of the neighboring encampment on our residents, we have put up barriers on our property to prevent any through-traffic from the neighboring site and undertaken our own efforts to clear trash, blackberries, etc., on our side of the property. In November, we were informed that Union Pacific approved funding to begin removal of the overgrown vegetation beginning early this year, followed by cleanup of the other garbage and debris on the site. To our knowledge, that work has begun.

Frank Moscow wants to see better results.

"The people in this community are doing their fair share. They're actually doing more than their fair share," said Moscow. "It's very frustrating to know that individually and collectively the people in the community are stepping up and doing the right thing, and the large landowners are not."

Until they do, neighbors like Israel Banks will just have to deal with it.

"I know they don't, as a company, they don't really care, you know what I mean," said Banks. "It's just business to them. And so, I don't think they're going to try to clean anything up."