Seen a Rogue on the loose?
Get in touch with our Roguemeister:
JOHN SCHRAG
jschrag@wweek.com
(503) 243-2122
FAX: (503) 243-1115

 

Sometimes it's not the deed but the attitude that makes the Rogue. Such is the case with Leland Guy Marshall.

Marshall is the director of corporate policy at Columbia Steel Casting, a foundry adjacent to a narrow, stagnant channel south of the Columbia Slough in North Portland. In the spring of 1997, environmental activists spied ominous piles of dark-colored sand--the leftovers from casting steel--choking the wetland on the banks of the channel and contacted the Army Corps of Engineers.

The corps found that Columbia Steel didn't have the required permit to fill the land and ordered the company to restore the area to its wetland state.

Despite being caught red-handed, Marshall is hardly contrite. While denouncing the environmentalists to WW, Marshall claimed ignorance about the fill, even though it's a stone's throw from his office. He blames it on a contractor, Arizona Slag, which mines the castoff sand for minerals then puts it back on site.

Arizona Slag owner Jim Boris, however, told WW that Marshall is passing the buck. He says Columbia Steel made it clear it wanted the channel filled so it could eventually expand operations.

Indeed, after being busted by the corps, Marshall offered to apply for a permit to fill that entire portion of the channel. The corps, however, is requiring Columbia Steel to remove the fill and replant the wetlands before it will consider a fill permit.

The fill itself probably isn't that environmentally damaging. The channel behind Columbia Steel is extremely narrow and no longer connects to the rest of the slough. The former wetlands were not critical habitat.

Still, Marshall, of all people, should have known better. In 1990 he challenged the city's methods of determining environmental zones. The man knows his green laws.

Then again, it wouldn't be the first time Marshall played fast and loose with the law. Marshall resigned from the Oregon State Bar in 1989 after it was revealed that he stole $13,000 from a client's estate. He was later sentenced to one year of house arrest for the crime.

 

originally published July 29, 1998