Local brief
Tyee Yacht Club wants to dredge 70,000 cubic yards of the Columbia in Portland; DEQ takes comments through Nov. 9
Oregon DEQ is asking for public comment on a proposed water quality certification for 10 years of maintenance dredging around floating homes at the Tyee Yacht Club, river mile 108.7 of the Columbia River in Portland. Written comments are due Nov. 9, 2026. Notice Nearby brief, not Legal Publication.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is taking public comment on a proposed water quality certification for maintenance dredging at the Tyee Yacht Club, at river mile 108.7 of the Columbia River in Portland. The club says the work is needed to keep navigation access open around the floating houses at its moorage. DEQ sent the notice on Oct. 5, 2026.
What's planned: dredging about 12 acres down to a target depth of 8 feet below Columbia River Datum. Roughly 20,000 cubic yards would come out in the first year and up to 50,000 more over the rest of a 10-year permit, for a total of about 70,000 cubic yards. For scale, that's somewhere around 7,000 dump-truck loads of river bottom, though none of it is going in a truck.
Where the sediment goes: the dredged material would be put back into the water in the Columbia River flowlane, the deeper main channel where the current keeps moving. The work would be done with a floating suction dredge or with a clamshell bucket loading onto a barge.
Why DEQ is involved: a water quality certification is Oregon's sign-off that a project needing a federal permit will meet state water quality standards. Public comments go into DEQ's decision on whether to certify the project, and under what conditions.
How to comment: the full public notice is Submittal #113543 in DEQ's Your DEQ Online (YDO) system, under the Public Records button: https://ydo.oregon.gov/pub/pub-rcd/submittals/review/3/48781;tab=notice . Written comments are due to DEQ by Nov. 9, 2026. You don't need an account to comment unless you want to attach a file. DEQ's step-by-step guide to reading notices and commenting in YDO is here: https://www.oregon.gov/deq/permits/Documents/YDO-PublicNoticeComment-Guide.pdf
Source: Oregon DEQ public notice email, "DEQ Requests Comments on Proposed Water Quality Certification for Tyee Yacht Club Maintenance Dredging in Multnomah County," Oct. 5, 2026. Agency site: https://www.oregon.gov/deq
Photo: The Columbia River at Portland's Hayden Island with the Interstate Bridge, 1973, by David Falconer for the U.S. EPA's Documerica project, National Archives, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: the public notice on this register NN-PUBDESK-20261005-MULTOR-03 · Oregon Department of Environmental Quality · Public notice: Proposed Water Quality Certification, Tyee Yacht Club maintenance dredging (YDO Submittal #113543) · Oct. 5, 2026.
This is a Notice Nearby local brief — an in-house explainer written from a government-posted notice on this register. It is not official minutes, not a newspaper story, and not Legal Publication.