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  • June

    Corps contractors monitor screw traps downstream of Cougar Dam, May 28, 2021. The water flow turns a large screw creating hydraulics, which keeps small fish from escaping the trap. These traps are collecting juvenile salmon after they pass through Lookout Point, Cougar and Big Cliff dams. We’ve changed operations at these dams to help with downstream fish passage – or that’s the goal. These traps will give us insight into how well we’re doing.

    That sounds fishy: twisting traps troll tributaries in the Willamette

    The bulky contraptions float listlessly downstream of three dams in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The buoyant, metal devices hold large screws that the water flow turns. This twist of the screw – creating a creaking, rasping, scraping sound – generates enough hydraulics to keep small fish from escaping the slowly spinning, cone-shaped collectors – or, screw traps.

  • May

    A man in a blue button up shirt and blue fleece vest sits at his desk in his office.

    Building dams and, we hope, public trust

    I take pride in knowing my organization, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Portland District, has played an important role in the story of how our country taps into our water resources like the Willamette River. On April 17, the district celebrated 150 years of serving Oregon and southwestern Washington.    

  • February

    The Oregonian recognized the Corps' efforts to save the downtown Portland area from the flooding.

    Containing the Flood of 1996

    One of the biggest floods the Portland District faced in the late 20th century occurred in February 1996 and caused millions of dollars in damage to the region. The District played a crucial role in combating this flood 's impact through a variety of short-term and long-term activities.

  • January

    Workers place the new Auditorium building cupola within reach of the crane that will lift it into place.

    Dam, that’s a lot of work: Bonneville buildings get face lift, cupolas

    Portland District put new roofs – one of the most vital parts of a building in the rainy northwest – on the Bonneville Project Office and Auditorium buildings, which are included in the list of National Historic Landmarks.

  • December

    Headshot of a man with a short beard. He is wearing glasses, a light-gray suit, baby-blue shirt and dark tie.

    Hydropower to the people: Mathematician brings energy to new position

    In the wet world of hydropower, a former math teacher has just donned a watery mantle to meet the changing demands of one of the oldest sources of energy.
  • Brigadier General Peter Helmlinger, Northwestern Division commander, toured the Portland Veteran's Affairs Medical Center (PVAMC) with Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers team members who are working on designs and plans to retrofit the PVAMC, Sept. 28, 2018. The tour was a way for District staff to discuss the difficulties the team will face during seismic retrofitting.

    Crowded crest in Portland confronts crafty crew of engineers, planners

    The Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus sits on a 450-foot-tall basalt-rock hill south of downtown. Marquam Hill, also known as “Pill Hill” due to the amount of medical facilities clustered on its crest, is also crowded with homes, steep slopes and daily commuters (during non-pandemic times). These steep and rocky slopes garnered ridicule for Dr. Kenneth Mackenzie when he initially proposed to build a medical school on Marquam in 1914. According to Oregon Health and Science University’s historical collections, “The land, unusable to the railroad company, came to be known as ‘Mackenzie’s Folly’ in reference to its location on an inaccessible hilltop.”

  • November

    Left: Anthony Johnson, technical writer-editor (engineering) with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Portland District, during his first deployment to Afghanistan, from 2004 to 2005. Right: Johnson in November 2019 at the district's headquarters in downtown Portland.

    From self-hate to self-love: An Army veteran’s journey of healing

    Whatever else Anthony Johnson could say about their military service, it at least gave them a friend who cared enough to hide Johnson’s pistol away from them at a time when Johnson might have used it to end their own life.
  • Kyle Anderson and some of his teammates from the Pleasant Hill – Goshen Fire Station who worked the Holiday Farm wildfire together.

    In Harm’s Way: Kyle Anderson goes above and beyond

    Kyle Anderson, a Corps' electrician at Lookout Point Dam is also a volunteer firefighter who was called into action when the Holiday Farm Wild Fire threatened his his hometown of Pleasant Hill, Oregon.

  • October

    Erica Medley, a dam safety geologist with Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, makes her way through thick smoke and fallen trees as she surveys damage on site at Blue River Dam Sept. 14. Medley joined a multi-disciplinary team of operations, engineering and dam safety personnel for a detailed inspection of the project just days after the Holiday Farm Fire burned through the area, impacting Blue River and nearby Cougar Dam.

    Historic wildfires test Corps’ Willamette Valley projects

    The wildfires that closed in on the Corps’ 13-dam system in the Willamette Valley caused minor damage at four dam sites.
  • Jim Day puts out a structural fire during a training exercise as part of his volunteer fire fighting duties with High Prairie Fire and Rescue.

    Just Another Day in Paradise

    Meet Jim Day. Based on his career history we think he may have been a fish in a previous life.