How is Lake Oswego’s cleanup of local parks from the storm going?

The immense cleanup in the wake of the January wind and ice storm is progressing.

According to Jeff Munro, the deputy parks director for the Lake Oswego Parks and Recreation Department, the city has had to clean up around 230 trees as well as debris that fell in local parks and natural areas.

The city had closed a number of parks during cleanup and is slowly opening them back up again, including Springbrook Park earlier this week. Munro said that the park was heavily impacted by the storm and that the city prioritized making it safe for pedestrians due to its heavy use.

“For our most heavily used parks, Springbrook Park took the biggest hit. We went in with chainsaws and chippers and tried to clear things to get the pathway open. We understand that’s a pretty big cut through for some of the kids and tried as fast as we could to open it back up,” Munro said.

The department is hoping to get East Waluga Park, which suffered a few downed trees and a damaged playground structure, open in the next few days as well as a section of West Waluga Park that was closed.

Pennington Park, which is a greenway and path, is still closed as the department hasn’t had the chance to work on recovering it yet, but other local parks are open.

Partial or full closures of six park restrooms remain in place due to a lack of power causing pipes to break and Munro hopes to get all of them back up again in the next two weeks. Restrooms at Iron Mountain, Roehr and East Waluga parks are closed while restrooms at George Rogers, West Waluga and Westlake parks are open with limited service.

Munro said the city hasn’t determined specifics on tree replanting efforts and emphasized that the department must work to put the right trees in the right places.

He thanked local staff for working hard to clean up the wreckage from the storm, amid sometimes dangerous conditions.

“The working conditions were not good at all and not only parks but public works, police, fire and pretty much anyone who was able to maneuver through conditions and do some work … There were long days and long weeks. Some worked up to two weeks straight without a day off. There are a lot of people who put in a lot of time to try to get it back to normal,” Munro said.