South Seattle awash in PCBs
Tests show EPA cleanup left high levels of contaminants
New tests reveal surprisingly high concentrations of long-lived industrial chemicals spread much farther than previously thought at the site of an old asphalt plant next to the Duwamish River in South Seattle.
"Cleanup completed!" crowed a March 2000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fact sheet about the Malarkey Asphalt property in South Park. But it turns out that the EPA-supervised cleanup left PCBs in concentrations up to 140 times the level that requires cleanup.
The property owner, the Port of Seattle, had been set earlier this year to move on to its next phase of cleanup -- removing polluted soil from a thin stretch of riverbank. But outraged neighborhood activists demanded more complete testing of the property.
PCBs are a huge concern along the Duwamish. The fish that live in the river are the most PCB-contaminated in the state, state health officials say.
Citing the new tests, port officials recently assured the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition and South Park Neighborhood Association that they would clean up a lot more of the two-acre site than originally planned. That will delay completing the project by as much as a year.
"These levels are extremely high," said BJ Cummings, coordinator of the cleanup coalition. "The numbers are just enormously higher than anything we've seen before -- and we thought we were dealing with high numbers before."
Neighborhood residents told the coalition that the earlier cleanup removed some of the contamination, missing some known hot spots at the old Malarkey Asphalt Co. and its predecessor, the Duwamish Manufacturing Co.
More than half of the nearly 50 samples taken over the summer were above the state-mandated cleanup level for industrial properties, according to preliminary data released last week by the port.
The highest result was 1,400 parts PCB per million parts soil -- 140 times the Washington cleanup standard for industrial properties. At homes, any soil over 1 ppm must be removed.
"We found (contamination) in more locations and farther inland than we thought we'd find it," said Wayne Grotheer, the port's director of health, environmental and risk services.
A major source of the Malarkey PCBs is contaminated oil brought there during the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s after it was drained out of Seattle City Light equipment, officials say. It was given to local businesses to ease the bite of high energy prices.
Because of City Light's involvement, city taxpayers are on the hook for some of the cleanup costs. So is the port, which bought the site from Malarkey Asphalt at the urging of EPA.
As part of the purchase agreement, the port carried out a cleanup plan that had been put together by a Malarkey consultant, port spokesman David Schaefer said.
That cleanup was not intended to be the final word on the site, said the EPA's Jeff Rodin, who monitored the earlier cleanup. "The initial aspect was to stabilize it," he said. "The removal action was done, but not the whole long-term cleanup." Of the "Cleanup completed!" line, he said, "I understand how that can be misleading."
In light of the new PCB readings, the prior cleanup site -- measuring about a third of an acre -- will be re-examined, Schaefer said.
"We don't think we're going to find anything, but you want to know and you want to be able to reassure the public," he said.
This fall, the port plans to drill additional holes and test more soil throughout the site. Then crews will dig out contaminated soil. Cost estimates won't be available until the agency knows the extent of the underground pollution.
"We're happy the port stepped up to the plate to do a full investigation," said Ravi Sanga, the EPA's current manager of the Malarkey site.
Continue reading this story from the Seattle P-I:
South Park awash in PCBs
