Beaumont-Wilshire Neighborhood Assn.

Straddling the Beaumont Wilshire Divide

Oct 10, 2000

By Chris Hathaway Dzubay

We all know where we live?–Oregon, Portland, the Beaumont Wilshire Neighborhood. We know where the grocery and the pub and the coffee shops are, and who lives down the street and next door. But how many of us know our ecological address.

An ecological address defines where we live in terms of the natural rather than the built environment. It anchors our place in the landscape showing things like the climate zone, the annual precipitation rate, the soil type, and perhaps most importantly what watershed we live in.

Those of us who call Beaumont Wilshire home, either live in the Columbia Slough Watershed (technically a Sub-Watershed) or the Willamette River Watershed. Sure everyone?’s seen the new ?“Entering the Columbia Slough Watershed?” signs on 33rd and 42nd. But who knows what watershed they live in? Who knows where the real Continental Divide of Beaumont Wilshire is?

Well from 33rd, the watershed dividing line heads east up Bryce, crosses Alameda on 37th and then intersects with Fremont just east of 38th. It then travels east dividing the blocks between Fremont and Klickitat before it crosses Klickitat as 45th turns into 46th. Just before 47th, the watershed boundary line dives south and out of the neighborhood jutting across Stanton between 49th and 50th. Go ahead, walk out in a downpour to one of these spots and try to find the area where water begins to move in different directions.

We can all make a positive difference in our urban ecology. A great first step is to recognize what watershed we live in. In our neighborhood where all the real streams have been piped and paved over, the stormwater running down the street is essentially a primary stream. Let's treat it with the wonder and respect it deserves.

For more information on the Willamette River Watershed, call Roberta Jortner with the City of Portland. For more information on or to get involved in the Columbia Slough Watershed call Jay Mower with the Columbia Slough Watershed Council. To play with cool mapping programs that allow you to look at watershed boundaries across the region, check out one of Metro's web pages - http://metromap.metro-region.org/MetroMapPublic/