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A 90-minute leak was enough to push untreated wastewater through an offshore emergency outfall, trigger stay-out-of-water warnings, and remind West Seattle that sewer infrastructure is not invisible when it fails.
The former Armstrong riverfront is not an empty pad waiting for the future. It is a contaminated industrial site with cleanup work, vessel permits, wastewater capacity planning, and Oregon's broader data-center water gap already in the public record.
The Puget Sound spill and the St. Helens data-center record are not the same event. They belong in the same public conversation because both expose a reality tech boosters prefer to blur: water, wastewater, backup power, cleanup, and public health are the foundation of any industrial buildout.
The claim that every new data center is a surveillance center outruns the evidence. The verified record is narrower and still alarming: AI infrastructure is being fast-tracked through national-security language while military cloud, frontier-model policy, U.S.-Israel defense-tech cooperation, and local opposition all converge around the same buildout.
Trump's environmental policy is not one chemical fight. It is a stack of choices that puts extraction, cost relief, and industrial flexibility ahead of habitat, drinking water, insects, wildlife, and public-land safety.
Residents face strict rules while city leaders and industry groups argue over pricing, exemptions, and whether the region can avoid a Level 1 emergency by September 2026.
Beaver Drainage Improvement Company told regulators the mitigation plan would fill about 26,800 linear feet of existing drainage ditches used for irrigation and drainage across more than 2,700 acres.
Washington's own Columbia River records put communities, farms, industry, fish, and navigation in the same water-use frame as the Oregon-side Port Westward proposal.
DEQ's 401 certification places the proposed discharge path in waters connected to McLean Slough and the Clatskanie River. DEQ also lists existing dissolved oxygen, temperature, dioxin, total dissolved gas, PCB, and DDE impairments in the receiving-water system.
DEQ's Jan. 7, 2025 certification says the project would create 72.6 acres of new impervious surface. NOAA's biological opinion says 23 ESA-listed species or distinct population segments are likely to be adversely affected.
If you want to understand the Port Westward fight, start with the public record: wetland fill, fish habitat impacts, impaired receiving waters, and a permit history that has already forced the project back through review more than once.
Official records and reporting describe a city stacking contract pressure, annexation, zoning, lot-splitting, and debt confirmation around one wastewater project, while the letter reviewed by the site shows the owners were also being told a condemnation path was on the table.