www.channeldeepening.com

SITUATION
The Columbia River shipping channel needed to be made three feet deeper from Portland, Oregon to the Pacific Ocean to accommodate larger, modern vessels serving the Port of Portland and all ports along the Columbia River. Without a stronger federal financial commitment to the project, billions of American-made and grown export products from the Northwest and Midwest could be stranded, thousands of jobs could be at-risk and ports along the Columbia River would no longer be competitive.

STRATEGY
Leverage and expand the political clout of the existing Columbia River Channel Deepening Coalition to secure, for the first time, inclusion of the project in a Presidential budget request to Congress.

OUTCOME
President George W. Bush visited the Port of Portland in August 2004 to announce his support for deepening the Columbia River channel and inclusion of the project in his budget request to Congress. In the following years, the project earned bipartisan support from Congress, championed by U.S. Senator Patty Murray, and is near completion.


“The Channel Coalition turned to Gallatin at a critical time in the history of the channel-deepening project, and they helped us achieve success through stepped-up advocacy with our congressional allies and the administration. Gallatin was an effective partner in helping us get the final approvals and key funding commitments to make a deeper Columbia River channel a reality for the Northwest and the nation.”