The Water Pollution Control Laboratory is a city owned and operated institution that was opened in 1997 adjacent to cathedral park in the St Johns neighborhood. What could easily have been closed off and separate from the community has instead seamlessly worked itself into the fabric of the neighborhood.
The landscaped nature trails function as an extension of cathedral park, allowing the public to freely walk through and learn from informational plaques or simply by witnessing nature in action. Every methodology for stormwater and pollution control are on working display here.
At every turn informational plaques inform you on plant and animal life as well as pollution and stormwater.
Whether it is the swales in the parking lot, the restored habitat on the banks of the Willamette or the water garden, the community can see tangibly where water from 50 city acres end up, which is markedly better than seeing water disappear in a storm grate and never giving it a passing thought again. The building itself is used by community groups for meetings and events. The grounds are a living laboratory for the Bureau of Environmental Services to implement and monitor how water reaches the Willamette and methods of intervention and control of pollution.
The water garden, designed to intercept runoff from 50 urban acres before the water reaches the Willamette.
The work being done by the lab is by no means limited to the habitat and trails on the grounds surrounding the building, but these are a valuable resource nonetheless for research and applied science while also being an invaluable part of St Johns.
Residents who may be skeptical of tax funded environmental endeavors will be more easily won over when natural beauty and recreation are factors as they are here.
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