Where we are, where we're going on Portland's Willamette River

It's been poisoned, plundered and taken for granted. Out-of-towners mispronounce its name and hardly anyone swims in it. But developers, industrialists, tree-huggers and the wheeler-dealers at City Hall love the Willamette River. The only problem is, it doesn't always love them back. Efforts to make the Willamette Portland's centerpiece — a great gathering place — have met with mixed results in recent years. Now Mayor-elect Sam Adams is putting all of the sometimes disparate efforts on behalf of the Willamette under a single commissioner as part of the Office of Healthy Working Rivers. It's an expansion of the city's River Renaissance program, a four-year-old initiative meant to coordinate development, cleanup and other activities along the river.