Oregon Public Broadcasting

How do you clean up dirty Northwest air? That’s the question being posed not to scientists, but to residents of the Columbia Gorge Wednesday in Hood River.

Oregon and Washington environmental officials want fresh ideas on how to clear out the smog from one of the Northwest’s most iconic locales. Correspondent Anna King reports.

Environmentalists say Portland General Electric should lead the pollution cleanup.

A recent study by a University of Washington scientist says more than half of the gorge’s pollution comes from the company’s coal fired plant in Boardman, Oregon.

William Knight, an Oregon Environmental Quality spokesman, says retrofits at the plant will take time.

William Knight: "You know a lot of people might conceptualize it as something that you put on your car a small device or a muffler or something to that effect. But when we are talking about controls for something like a coal-fired power plant in essence they have to construct one or more building-sized controls."

Knight is looking to Gorge residents for ideas to reduce pollution from things like farms, woodstoves, agricultural burning and cars.

Oregon and Washington air quality managers will finalize their report and send it to the Columbia River Gorge Commission in April.