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Learn About the Portland Harbor Superfund

CUB was pleased to co-sponsor a forum on Cleaning Up the Willamette: The Portland Harbor Superfund with the League of Women Voters of Portland on February 9th. The panel was informative and the audience asked good questions.

The forum was taped by MetroEast Community Media and their broadcast dates are:
MetroEast broadcast dates for Portland Harbor Forum

The forum video is also available to watch online, here.

Highlights from forum presentations are provided below.

Kristine Koch from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explained that the Portland Harbor Superfund site runs from just north of the Broadway Bridge to Kelly Point Park close to where the Willamette River meets the Columbia. Kristine summarized the history of industrial uses and contaminants ranging from metals and pesticides to dioxins and PCBs that have been left behind in the water and sediments. There is widespread contamination in a large and dynamic site affected by ship traffic and other ongoing uses of the river. The potential impacts on wildlife and human health are significant, especially for people who eat fish from the site and vulnerable populations such as pregnant women and children.

There are four major cleanup methods.
• Dredging that removes contaminated sediments from the river with transport to landfills or other disposal sites.
• Capping or covering polluted sites with materials resistant to erosion by water flow or ship traffic.
• Targeted treatment sites.
• Monitored natural recovery.

The EPA has developed a range of cleanup options, A through G, with different combinations of those four cleanup methods. Plan G is the most expensive primarily due to higher levels of dredging but it would ensure that cleanup occurs on a faster timeframe with more certainty of success. Right now the EPA prefers a hybrid of plan E.

In early April the EPA will release its proposed cleanup plan that will aim to balance protection of human health and the environment, community impacts, time for recovery, and costs. There will be a sixty day public comment period on the proposed cleanup plan. Hosting this forum was intended to help get folks prepared to make their cleanup preferences known to the EPA this spring.

The proposed cleanup plan and lots of background information is available on the EPA’s website.

Rose Longoria, Regional Superfund Projects Coordinator at the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, provided an overview of the role of tribes in the Superfund process. Her focus, though, was on the Yakama Nation’s concerns about the EPA’s current preferred cleanup plan due to its over-reliance on monitored natural recovery. The Yakama Nation prefers an enhanced version of the EPA’s Plan G and is very concerned that cost and political concerns not drive decision making towards a preferred cleanup plan that will take longer and provide less certainty in meeting cleanup goals.

Barbara Smith is spokesperson for the Lower Willamette Group (LWG) which is composed of twelve businesses and two public entities that signed agreements with EPA to conduct the remedial investigation and feasibility study of the Portland Harbor. The LWG is a small subset of potentially responsible parties identified by the EPA. Barbara mentioned a particular LWG interest in getting clear direction from the EPA for final cleanup to avoid the possibility that in the future the EPA might come back to say that more is needed. The LWG has summarized its recommendations to the EPA in developing the proposed cleanup plan and it is available by clicking on the Summary Document link in the left side of this page.

Bob Sallinger is Conservation Director at the Audubon Society of Portland and is Audubon’s representative on the Portland Harbor Community Advisory Group. Bob’s views were similar to those conveyed by Rose: too much reliance on monitored natural recovery, too little use of cleanup techniques like dredging that provide for faster cleanup with greater certainty of effectiveness, and too much concern about costs. For example, Bob stressed that the cost estimates are paying for cleanup of a large site, will be paid over many years, and will be split between many different responsible parties. Bob spoke for the Audubon Society but indicated that their concerns were similar to those of the Community Advisory Group and that both groups support the enhanced version of EPA’s current Plan G.

More information is available in a recent guest editorial in The Oregonian co-written by Bob Sallinger and Travis Williams of Willamette Riverkeepers.

The Portland Harbor Community Advisory Group’s website is: portlandharborcag.info.

If you have follow-up questions let me know and I’ll try to hunt up an answer or direct your query to the appropriate person. My contact information is Janice Thompson at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and 503-277-1984 x24.

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12/27/16  |  0 Comments  |  Learn About the Portland Harbor Superfund

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