(King County photos)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
You’ve probably heard many times that the Duwamish River – running along much of West Seattle’s eastern boundary – is a “Superfund site,” referring to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency program, and that a multi-billion-dollar cleanup has long been under way.
Tuesday, we got a rare chance to hear specifics, as the cleanup of decades-old industrial pollution – really, more than one cleanup – marked a milestone.
A media briefing was held on the river’s shore at Duwamish River People’s Park (itself a cleaned-up site), days after work began.
The last speaker, Duwamish River Community Coalition director Paulina López, offered the most relatable context, reminding those gathered that the cleanup was about bringing the river “back to life”:
(WSB videos)
López followed representatives of government agencies and Boeing, all talking briefly about what role their agencies play. The cleanup section where polluted sediment is being scooped out right now – much of it contaminated by PCBs – is managed by King County, said Jim Bolger, whose brief words of introduction were followed in this clip by Elly Hale, (updated) one of the EPA’s project managers along with Nasrin Erdelyi:
We talked with Hale after the briefing to get details on exactly what’s happening right now. Contaminated sediment is being scooped up, placed on a barge, towed to shore, transferred to land, then loaded onto trains bound for the Columbia Ridge Landfill in Oregon.
How deep the scooping goes depends on how deep the pollution goes – the goal is to get to clean sediment, Hale said, which could be anywhere from one to six feet down. An important point she had mentioned at the microphone was that people are still advised not to eat any fish from the Duwamish River but salmon. Wondering why that’s OK but others aren’t? It’s because the others are residents, living out their lives in the polluted river, while salmon spend most of their lives out in cleaner sea water before showing up here.
Another key point of the work that’s under way is “source control” – keeping new pollution out of the river. The lead agency in that work is the state Department of Ecology, whose representative Dr. Kim Wooten spoke briefly too, along with Boeing‘s Katie Moxley and the City of Seattle’s David Schuchardt:
The in-water work that’s under way now can only last through February before taking a break until October, to protect fish. Because of that short work window, it’ll take 10 years for the operation to get to the south end of Harbor Island.
The cleanup work – planning, design, and execution – has been a quarter-century in the making. This is, to be technical, the Upper Reach of the Lower Duwamish Waterway. This page has more detail on exactly what’s happening now; Pacific Pile & Marine is the lead contractor.
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