Talk:Willamette River/Archive 1

Ferry
Where exactly is the river crossed by a ferry (as the article currently mentions)? If there are ferries operating on the Willamette, it would be nice to specify a location.--Clipdude 07:42, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Never mind. I found the info on the Internet.--Clipdude 07:48, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Pronunciation
I fixed the pronunciation. Since I see the pronunciation has been changed at least once before, here are my sources:


 * Personal experience. I've been living for some years now within a few blocks of the Willamette, in Eugene, Oregon.
 * http://www.stevensauke.com/say/northwest.html
 * http://www.loundy.org/yahoo/pronouncer.html
 * http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/Willamette

Hmm. Knowing how it's pronounced, "wil-LAM-met" makes sense, but if you don't, I think it's still ambiguous. (Does the middle syllable rhyme with "lamb" or "tom"? Yes, I know which it is, but it's not obvious if I only saw "LAM".)  I also see that it's been changed several times over the article's history. What I've seen in other articles do with potentially confusing pronunciations (like Boulez) is to use the IPA -- in this case, I think it would be something like /w&#616;'læ.m&#618;t/. Comments?


 * Yeah, always use IPA. Pseudo-pronunciation shouldn't cut it hear at WP, except for temporary reasons. All wil-LAM-met tells me is that the stress is on the second syllable. Since I still hear the national news media say 'o-ray-gahn' on occassion I doubt this will help those outside the Pacific Northwest. I even heard Willamette butchered on CNN once, and take it for granted that I grew up in the northwest after hearing that or The Dalles, or Puyallap, etc. mispronounced. Besides the 'la:'/'læ' issue is the 'met' issue. It is more of a schwa sound, which 'met' does not convey properly. I.e. more like a cross between 'mutt' and 'mitt', not like as in 'the Mets'. Khirad 16:58, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Bridges of the Willamette?
I'm thinking that I need to integrate the bridges that span the river, being that they have such a strong connection to the river itself. Not sure where to put them or how to do it. Any ideas? North to South- St. Johns, Burlington Northern 5.1, Fremont, Broadway, Steel, Burnside, Morrison, Hawthorne, Marquam, Ross Island, Sellwood, Sellwood railroad, Abernathy, Oregon City... Cacophony 03:50, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)


 * Will copy list from Bridges in Portland, Oregon for a start, but the ferries should be added, as clipdude notes above. Also, there are comm. boats above the falls.  One example is the Willamette Queen in Salem.


 * another ferry: in Canby  Also a few bridges in Salem. Cacophony 02:42, 28 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I can't believe Canby still has that ferry! As my friend used to say "at least we're not Molalla." Khirad 17:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

It looks like user 24.21.16.61 added the table of bridges around 2005-11-05, but I can't find a reference for this information. Google shows only this article when searching for a few of those data elements. I'm tempted to replace the table with my own measurements using GoogleEarth. Any reason I shouldn't? —EncMstr 06:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The bridge list is missing at least two major bridges. The I-5 "Boone Bridge" from Wilsonville (N) to Charboneau (S) which is close to the site of the old Boone's Ferry. Yes, the family that operated the ferry was the same family as that of Daniel Boone. The community on the South bank is near historic Butteville and is named for the Charboneaus of fur trapping fame and the family of Sacajewea. I do not know know if any of the family lived in the area but it was an area of French Canadian settlement.


 * The second bridge missing is the Hwy bridge from Newburg to St. Paul on Oregon 219. This was a very important river section in early Oregon history as it was where the French and English citizens came together and decided to affilliate with the United States rather than England.


 * I believe that you are also missing the bridge to Sauvie Island and the railroad bridge between the two bridges just mentioned. The Salem RR bridge is missing, it is just North of Marion St. There are also briges at Albany/Corvallis, Junction City, Eugene (including I-5) and Springfield. This is based on personal observation from having navigated the entire river in a canoe and driven, taken the train over, cycled or walked the bridges. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.20.239.190 (talk • contribs) 20:30, 11 July 2006.


 * Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the  link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to…) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes&mdash;they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills.  New contributors are always welcome. Walter Siegmund (talk) 00:01, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Mention the Big Pipe project?
Part of the environmental work related to the river is Portland's largest civil works project ever, the 'Big Pipe' project. Some information on that may be pertinent. --Mattmcc 03:48, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, its pretty noticeable. Khirad 17:07, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the copy edit on the BPP info I added Katr. JordanRL (talk) 23:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Williamette?
There's an automatic redirect from "Williamette" to "Willamette," and at least one other page links to this article as the "Williamette River." I've lived in Oh-ray-gone's Wil-uh-metty Valley my entire life and I've never encountered this alternative spelling. Is there any historical, factual, or otherwise interesting basis for writing "Williamette" instead of "Willamette" -- or is this merely a common misspelling? Does the redirect imply this is a less common but still accepted spelling, and thus not bother point out that it's wrong, or does it bluntly imply "no, 'Willamette' is what you meant"? I would change the spelling of "Williamette" when I encounter it if I knew I wasn't derailing some keen historical insight. On the other hand, if there is some rational basis for spelling it "Williamette" perhaps this article should mention it, no? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.9.146.66 (talk) 10:09, 24 January 2007 (UTC).


 * If you search Wikipedia for "Williamette" you will see that it is a common typo/misspelling. One which I'll go through and use AWB to fix as soon as I get a minute. In any case I think that's all it is--a common typo. Katr67 15:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * P.S. I think this comes from people's fingers being used to typing the name "William"... Katr67 15:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Mercury Pollution Sourced to China
I can't find an orginal source in Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, but the Associated Press and Oregon DEQ are said to have reported that 20 percent of the mercury pollution in the Willamette River originates in China. See this note: http://www.oregonecology.com/2007_11_01_archive.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.195.161.189 (talk) 23:48, November 23, 2007 (UTC)

Sources for expansion/citations

 * CAPTAIN SEES REVIVAL OF RIVER. The Oregonian, November 24, 2002, CHERYL MARTINIS - Aboutmovies (talk) 07:11, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * THROUGH THE HEART OF IT < ONCE THE WILLAMETTE DEFINED OREGON, CHANNELING ITS COMMERCE AND AND < DETERMINING ITS SETTLEMENT. THE OLD RIVER IS GONE NOW. BUT WHAT REMAINS STILL < FLOWS THROUGH THE CENTER OF SOME OREGON LIVES. The Oregonian, September 4, 1988, Don Hamilton. Really long with lots of history. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Also need better description to include the Newberg Pool and any other river type terminology/geography for sections of the river. Aboutmovies (talk) 20:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Willamette Valley Projects from the Army Corps.
 * Home page for the Corps' WVP Aboutmovies (talk) 22:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Reservoirs on the river. Aboutmovies (talk) 22:44, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation?
My IPA is pretty bad, so I might be horribly wrong, but it looks like the accent is on the first syllable. If you pronounce it that way, Portlanders will immediately label you a tourist (it happened to me when I moved there). I can't get the .ogg file to run, so I'm not sure about that, though it claims to be a native. Wə-læm'-ət is my best guess on how I pronounce it, though the pronunciation listed is (as far as my IPA goes) the usual way to mispronounce it (I hung my head in despair when it was used on The West Wing).Somedumbyankee (talk) 03:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't read IPA either, but the accent should be on the second syllable. The easiest way I've found to explain it is "It's Willamette, damn it." (it rhymes). Katr67 (talk) 15:04, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Geobox
At WikiProject Rivers, it has been suggested that Template:Geobox River be used instead of Template:Infobox River. I like the Geobox template, and I'd like to make the substitution for the Willamette River article. After making the change, I'd move the watershed map into the Geobox, and I'd add a mouth locator map as well. See Vltava or Johnson Creek (Willamette River) or Rogue River (Oregon) for an idea of how the Willamette Geobox might look. Does anyone object if I make this change? Finetooth (talk) 18:00, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Go for it. VerruckteDan (talk) 13:22, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Did it. I was able to use all but two statistics from the infobox. Those are the average discharge rates for December and August at the Morrison Bridge. The geobox has no place to put these, but they are included in the main text. The geobox has places for other information, some of which I've added, including citations. I used Loy, which I have not seen, for the drainage basin area; I just moved the citation over from the infobox version. The Loy number corresponds nicely with the USGS number, so I don't think this is a problem. The only glaring amazing discrepancy I found was in the length of the river. I kept re-checking to see if I was misunderstanding something, and my hunch would have been more like the 187 miles already in the main text. However, the citation to the 187 is not a source citation but simply an explanation of where the source is, and it's the same source defined by the USGS. Nothing that I can think of except stream meanders can account for this difference. I don't think the USGS is likely to have got this wrong. So the new number is 309 miles. That, again according to the USGS here makes it the 30th longest river in the U.S. This geobox is just a start. I see lots more to do here. Finetooth (talk) 00:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Oops. No, no, no. It's not number 30 in length. It's number 19 in discharge and not ranked by length. I am getting cross-eyed. Must knock off for a while. Finetooth (talk) 00:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * After a two-hour break, another oops. The 309 is not correct, but I don't know why I'm seeing it at the USGS site. The USGS has a river gauge at Harrisburg, just north of Eugene, and the river mile (RM) there is 161. Ergo, the 187 looks right and the 309 goofy. Maybe the 309 includes the mileage along the two forks as well as the main stem. I didn't run into this problem on the short creeks I've been working on. Finetooth (talk) 03:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)