Pollution Facts

12 Facts on Columbia River Pollution

Every day, thousands of pipes release pollution into the Columbia and its tributaries. As the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest, the Columbia also becomes the dumping ground for the Northwest. Pollutants sources include factories; wastewater treatment plants; and runoff from agricultural lands, logging, and industrial sites, and city streets.

As if this weren’t enough, the Columbia Basin is home to hundreds of contaminated waste sites—including the most polluted place in the Western Hemisphere: the Hanford Nuclear Site. Studies on Columbia River resident fish, otters, bald eagles, and other species reveal the heavy toll of toxic pollution.

Columbia Riverkeeper fights for clean water. Check out our “Dirty Dozen: 12 Facts on Columbia River Water Pollution” to see what we’re up against—and why our work to stopping pollution is so important.

In 2006, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated the Columbia River Basin a Critical Large Aquatic Ecosystem because toxic contamination and other pollution was so severe.¹
Toxic contaminants found in the Columbia River Basin today include: mercury, DDT, PCBs and PBDE flame-retardants, PAHs, arsenic, copper, lead, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products.²
The major sources of pollution in the Columbia River Basin are: factories, wastewater treatment plants, and runoff from agricultural lands, logging, industrial sites, and city streets.³
Wastewater treatment plants discharge more than 100 toxic substances into the Columbia River.⁴
Columbia River tribal members who frequently eat fish may have cancer risks up to 50 times higher than people who eat fish once a month. The reasons: certain species of fish, such as mountain whitefish, white sturgeon and large-scale sucker, contain high levels of cancer-causing chemicals.⁵
Fish caught near Bradford Island, located within the Bonneville Dam complex, contain the highest levels of cancer-causing PCBs in the Northwest. Yakama Nation, Oregon, and Washington are calling on EPA to designate the area a Superfund site.⁶
Groundwater contaminated with radioactive waste from the Hanford Nuclear Site continues to leach into the Columbia River. ⁷ According to the Wash. Dept. of Ecology, because the Columbia typically has hundreds of thousands of gallons of water flowing by every second, the contamination that enters the river is diluted to barely detectable levels.⁸
The Columbia River Basin is home to over 200 hydroelectric dams.⁹ For years, many of these dams released oil through chronic leaks and spills.¹⁰ In 2012 the Army Corps reported discharging over 1,500 gallons of PCB-laden transformer oil at the Ice Harbor Dam on the Snake River. Learn about Columbia Riverkeeper’s efforts to hold dam operators—including the federal government—accountable.
Toxic contaminants don’t just affect fish and smaller species; they biomagnify, or move up the food chain when one animal preys on another. This can cause larger animals in the ecosystem such as river otters, mink, bald eagles, osprey and humans to have extremely high levels of contaminants in their tissue.¹¹ Many toxic pollutants are hydrophobic; instead of readily breaking down and dissolving into the river, they persist in the environment and latch on to fat or sediment. They don’t simply wash away.¹²
Pesticides and herbicides, which kill specific insects and plants, have changed the composition of Columbia River ecosystems and vegetation to favor nonnative, pollutant-tolerant species.¹³
Chemicals of Emerging Concern (CECs) consist of estrogens, perfluorinated compounds, flame retardants, personal care products and pharmaceuticals. A sampling of sediment in the lower Columbia River, detected 49 different CECs.¹⁴
For nearly a century, Teck Metals, a Canadian mining company, released nearly 10 million tons of toxic wastes into the upper Columbia River.¹⁵ The company operates the world’s largest lead and zinc smelter just ten miles upstream of the U.S. border in Trail, British Columbia. EPA is currently overseeing a cleanup investigation.¹⁶

Preventing pollution at the source offers critical opportunities to keep toxics out of the Columbia River.

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12 Facts on Columbia River Pollution

Columbia Riverkeeper fights for clean water. Check out our “Dirty Dozen: 12 Facts on Columbia River Water Pollution” to see what we’re up against—and why our work to stopping pollution is so important.

Preventing pollution at the source offers critical opportunities to keep toxics out of the Columbia River.

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