Union Pacific’s Trash Problem

The city of Eugene has hit Union Pacific Railroad with more than $216,000 in fines for failing to clear piles of trash from homeless camps along rail lines north of Franklin Boulevard for a half-mile stretch of the Willamette River.

City records say Union Pacific broke repeated promises to keep the site clean and prevent illegal camping. Instead, records show, the company has repeatedly ignored requests to discourage campers and remove heaps of debris. City records also say that Union Pacific used heavy equipment to bury trash on site. Documents and witnesses say broken furniture, shopping carts, shipping pallets, chicken wire, needles and feces spill into the river from the six-acre Union Pacific site.

The city’s enforcement action is extraordinary, given that Eugene officials have known about the problems and allowed them to fester for nearly a decade. What remains unaddressed is what will happen to the unhoused people who camp on the Union Pacific land the city wants cleared.

Documents show the city issued a civil penalty notice to Union Pacific on May 2, 2022, citing repeated violations of ordinances that prohibit camping, garbage accumulation and conditions that attract rats. The city has been levying a $1,100-a-day penalty since then.

Willamette Riverkeeper, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting and restoring the river, says that runoff from the site threatens water quality. Michelle Emmons, upper watershed program manager for Willamette Riverkeeper, says that trash has floated into estuaries and creates a hazard for the organization’s volunteers who work to remove the debris. 

“It is really a mess. There are feces. There’s needles. There are campfires with blown-up objects and electronics in them. There are poop buckets,” Emmons says, noting her organization has been working to clean the site since 2014. “I mean it’s not a good thing. It’s not clean for the people who live there, either.” 

Union Pacific declined to answer questions about the violations. But Union Pacific spokesperson Daryl Bjoraas writes in a prepared statement that the company has worked diligently to respond to the city’s concerns, including a recent cleanup in 2021.

“​​Union Pacific understands and shares the community’s frustration with illegal dumping and camping on this Eugene property,” Bjoraas says in an email to Eugene Weekly. “Union Pacific has invested considerable time and resources for more than a decade repeatedly removing homeless encampments, drug paraphernalia, garbage and latrines from this site.”

Eugene officials acknowledged that they had cited Union Pacific but would not discuss the violations. City officials also declined to answer why it took several years before the city took enforcement action and levied civil penalties against Union Pacific. 

City spokesperson for unhoused response Kelly McIver says officials were not available for an interview before EW’s deadline. 

Read more on Eugene Weekly’s website here.