Mr. Chairman, in Portland we understand and appreciate the 

 work of the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, and as a 

 matter of fact, we admire your efforts so much that we sent you 

 our best, Congresswoman Furse, to help you in your work. We 

 know that you now have a new champion for the causes which we 

 all care so much about in Oregon. 



Mr. Chairman, the value to Portland of the work you do cannot 

 be overstated. Your efforts on fisheries, wildlife, endangered spe- 

 cies, clean water refuges, conservation, coastal zone management 

 and many others give us considerable hope for the future and par- 

 ticularly with a new administration that is so aligned with many of 

 our views. 



Just a few weeks ago you could have walked five blocks down 

 from where we are today to the Willamette River and seen people 

 catching chinook salmon. The run of spring chinook was nearly 

 eliminated by water pollution in the past, but under the leadership 

 of former governor, Tom McCall, we were able to clean up the Wil- 

 lamette River in the 1970's and the salmon returned. 



Those salmon represent an important part of our heritage. They 

 sustained the native Americans who lived here first, and when the 

 first immigrants arrived on the Oregon Trail, the salmon helped 

 them survive that first winter. 



Because our carelessness almost caused the salmon to disappear, 

 the fish serve as a symbol for our continued need to guard our 

 rivers carefully. Our first campaign to stop water pollution was 

 back in 1938 when a citizen-led initiative drive led to the creation 

 of the State Sanitary Authority to regulate sewage treatment, and 

 one member of the group was interested in movies and persuaded 

 Kodak to send up some of the very first colored motion picture film 

 and they made a movie that showed how polluted our river was at 

 that time. 



One particularly vivid scene showed flngerling trout dying 

 within seconds of being placed in the dirty river water. Since then 

 we have worked with industry and agriculture to eliminate most of 

 that pollution. It is our current experience, which combined sewer 

 overflows and storm water discharges show, the work to keep the 

 rivers clean is not over yet. 



In conclusion, I would say that Oregonians love the rivers. We 

 take our children fishing; show off the Willamette to out-of-town 

 visitors; we ride the stern wheeler; we walk across the river's bank; 

 and we have functions as we did last evening with the committee 

 overlooking the beautiful river. Probably more than anything, we 

 look at the river and it reminds us of how lucky we are to live 

 here, and we thank you so much for taking the time to come on 

 this field visit to our State. 



Thank you very much. 



STATEMENT OF THE HON. GERRY E. STUDDS, A U.S. REPRESENT- 

 ATIVE FROM MASSACHUSETTS, AND CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE 

 ON MERCHANT MARINE AND FISHERIES 



Chairman Studds. Thank you very much, Commissioner. Thank 

 you for your kindness in making this space available to us. 



