Talk:Willamette River

I thought the Sellwood Bridge was the most upstream in the Portland city limits? This article says its the Ross Island. Just cheking Tamara Bakewell Portland — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.13.69 (talk) 20:39, 30 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Good catch. Thanks for posting a note. I worked on the bridge section a couple of years ago, and I don't remember what I was looking at vis-a-vis the Ross Island Bridge and the total number of bridges. I'm traveling, and I don't have my bridge books with me. Just working from memory, though, it seems to me that you are right. Sellwood is part of Portland. Listing the bridges from memory, starting at the downstream end, I can name St. John's, Fremont, Broadway, Steel, Burnside, Morrison, Hawthorne, Ross Island, and Sellwood. That's only nine. Am I missing any? At least temporarily, I changed the article to give the Sellwood Bridge credit for being the furthest upstream in Portland, and I hedged on the total number of Portland bridges. Anyone with better info might want to tweak this further. Finetooth (talk) 22:55, 30 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Oh, Marquam makes 10. Any more? Finetooth (talk) 23:40, 30 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Sauvie Island and this one. Jsayre64 (talk) 00:16, 31 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

That is a railroad bridge. The text qualifies the count with "highway bridges". —EncMstr (talk) 03:09, 31 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

The Sauvie Island Bridge crosses the Multnomah Channel rather than the mainstem, and it seems to be beyond the Portland city limits. I restored the 10-count with the "highway" qualification. Finetooth (talk) 03:35, 31 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

For the record, that railroad bridge mentioned above (without name) by Jsayre64 is the Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1. Its Wikipedia article is actually more developed than those of any of the road bridges (and is B-class, whereas none of the 10 road bridges' articles has even been assessed as more than Start-class, although two or three probably now qualify now as C), but I am not suggesting it should be mentioned in this article. The general public has much less interest in railroad-only bridges, and few Portlanders could even identify this bridge by name, so it probably does not merit mention in the river article. SJ Morg (talk) 10:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Third paragraph in the section 'Course' says I-5 and US-99, it should be I-5 and State Route (SR)- 99. I found this reference 'http://www.gbcnet.com/ushighways/US99/index.html' and of course, this is what the Wikipedia article itself says about US-99. Fourth paragraph in the introductory section states that the dams on the river are for hydroelectric and irrigation. The 8 dams near Eugene don't have power plants nor any works used for irrigation. These are strictly for winter flood control and summer recreation. This is the Army's pamphelet 'http://www.nwd-wc.usace.army.mil/pdf/wmbroch.pdf' which really confirms both statements.

Jsayre64 and Finetooth ... wonderful workmanship ... thank you for your hard work here. 207.118.120.72 (talk) 14:49, 1 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Good catches. You are mostly correct. Route 99 is not a U.S. highway anymore, so what follows the river would be Oregon Route 99, Oregon Route 99E, and Oregon Route 99W. Many of the dams near Eugene produce electricity; I know that from living in the valley. But you are right about irrigation. I haven't heard of the dams serving that purpose and that USACE document doesn't support the claim. I will fix these things in just a second. Jsayre64 (talk) 16:55, 1 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Having grown up near Eugene, I'd like to second your comment about the dams producing electricity and provide a corroborating example and source, the Lookout Point Dam on the Middle-Fork http://www.nwd-wc.usace.army.mil/report/lop.htm. That same source seems to indicate that the dam was at least built with irrigation purposes in mind. I have no idea whether it is still used for this purpose. Rocket-Fueled (talk) 19:56, 3 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Oh, it certainly is. The bottom of that page you linked to has some stats about electricity generation, in fact. Jsayre64 (talk) 20:09, 3 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Possibly, but it must not be large-scale. But there are some farms nearby, in and around Pleasant Hill and Dexter. Jsayre64 (talk) 00:08, 4 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

A quick Google search shows that yes, indeed, some of the stored water is used for irrigation, but not much. Jsayre64 (talk) 04:40, 17 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

I disagree these dams do generate power USACE only operates these dams in conjunction with Bonneville power assc. These dams are all part of that system! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.220.229.129 (talk) 22:12, 2 April 2016

Not sure how a page about the Willamette could not have a single mention of the logging industry's use of and impact on the river.69.138.223.87 (talk) 14:04, 2 September 2013 (UTC)anonReply

  Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:29, 2 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

I would also point out that while no great amount of space has been devoted in this article to logging, it's not strictly true that the article ignores it entirely. The "Flora and fauna" section begins with: "Over the past 150 years, a significant change for the Willamette River has been the loss of its floodplain forests, which covered an estimated 89 percent of a 400-foot (120 m) band along each river bank in 1850." Part of the difficulty in writing an article that is comprehensive but not overly detailed is to decide how much to say about any particular relevant topic. One way to deal with logging along the Willamette in a more detailed way would be to create a separate article that we could link to from this article. If you'd like to undertake that, 69.138.223.87, others who are interested in the topic would probably be willing to help. Finetooth (talk) 18:09, 2 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

For the narrow gauge railroad see https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_the_narrow_gauge_railroad_in_the_Willamette_Valley --NearEMPTiness (talk) 05:49, 3 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Willamette River is also the longest northern flowing river in the US! Not North America, which is the Mackenzie River in Canada! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C0:C800:F63F:4564:9FFC:A50C:22DB (talk) 11:06, 30 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Deschutes and the Owyhee rivers are both longer than the Willamette and are also generally north-flowing. Finetooth (talk) 23:37, 1 July 2018 (UTC)Reply