Paul Taylor Is Committed to Cleaning Up the Columbia Slough

The retired computer programmer has spent roughly 600 days clearing trash from the water.

Paul Taylor - Slough cleanup - BOP (Paul Taylor)
By Rachel Saslow

It’s the COVID project that just keeps going. Four years ago, Paul Taylor hopped in his kayak to paddle around the Columbia Slough (pronounced “sloo”), the slow-moving waterway that runs parallel to the Columbia River, as a way to be outside and pass some pandemic time. The amount of trash in the water and on the riverbanks immediately bothered him, so he started picking it up and clearing it out. He adopted a 2-mile section of the slough near Whitaker Ponds Nature Park (land translation: up near the airport) through environmental nonprofit SOLVE’s Adopt-A-River program.

Taylor, a 59-year-old retired computer programmer, has spent roughly 600 days (three or so days a week) on the water and cleared away:

• A quarter million pieces of trash

• 250 tires

• 800 hypodermic needles

• Five empty safes

• A cast iron pedestal sink

• One gun

• Zero dead bodies

He does it for the turtles, beavers, great blue herons, osprey, coyote and deer.

“All this wildlife deserves to live in a natural space that’s free of trash and human encroachment,” he says. “They have such little space to begin with in this urban area.”

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