The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released a $342 million cleanup plan to remove decades of contamination from Seattle's only river, a majorindustrial corridor that was listed as a Superfund site in 2001.
The agency says the plan will make it healthier for people along the Lower Duwamish River to live, play and eat fish from its waters.
It's estimated to take 17 years, including sevenyears of active cleanup work and a decade of natural recovery, to remove longlasting PCBs, arsenic and other toxins that have riddled the waterway over the past century."This is a momentous day in the history of the Duwamish River," EPA regional administrator Dennis McLerran said Tuesday.
"This sets a very clear plan going forward."McLerran said he hoped to see enough improvements after seven years that people will be able to consume more fish and shellfish from the Duwamish River with fewer publichealthrestrictions. State health officials currently warn against eating resident fish such as sole, as well as crab and other shellfish from the Duwamish because of thecontamination.
The Duwamish, once a meandering river before it was straightened and deepened into a heavilyused navigation channel, runs through Seattle's industrial core and residentialneighborhoods before emptying into Elliott Bay.
The river is home to tribal members and others who rely on the river's fish and shellfish for food and their livelihood. It is also a vital lifeline for dozens of businesses, including tugcompanies, ship builders, manufacturing plants and cargo vessels, and supports 100,000 jobs with an economic input of $13.5 billion.
"It's a step in the right direction," said BJ Cummings, policy adviser with the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition. But "there are additional things that need to be done to protectpeople's health both more quickly and in the long term."
Her group and others had pushed for more contaminated soil to be dredged. She said she was pleased the EPA included 21 additional acres of dredging compared to its previousproposal.The EPA said its cleanup plan will remove 90 percent of pollution in the river through a combination of dredging, capping, and letting sediment from upriver naturally bury the toxicmaterial.
About 960,000 cubic yards of sediment will be dredged and disposed of in a landfill.The Lower Duwamish Waterway Group, which includes King County, the city of Seattle, the Port of Seattle and Boeing Co., had pushed for less dredging than what EPA proposed. It has supported more targeted dredging and greater use of other cleanup technologies that focused more on natural recovery.Those four entities are among the potential parties required to pay for the cleanup. They have already spent more than $100 million to clean up some of the most contaminatedparts of the river.
McLerran said another process is underway to determine which of the more than 150 businesses and property owners along the river should pay and how much.On Tuesday, King County Executive Dow Constantine and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray welcomed the decision and said they looked forward to cleaning up the river.Pollution from urban runoff and contaminated sites still continue to flow into the waterway, and a major concern has been how to keep cleanedup areas from getting
pollutedagain.EPA officials said the success of the cleanup plan relies on efforts by the state and local governments to control sources of pollution from upriver and in the entire watershed.
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