Alcoa, State Agree on PCB Cleanup

By ERIK ROBINSON

Alcoa will scoop 56,000 cubic yards of PCB-tainted sediment from the Columbia River near its old Vancouver smelter under a legally binding agreement reached this week with the state Department of Ecology.

The agreement culminates a long-running negotiation between the company and state regulators. It follows the revelation last year by researchers who found alarmingly high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, a suspected carcinogen, in the tissue of clams living in the shoreline.

State regulators had been aware of the polluted shoreline since 1997, but had yet to force a cleanup.

In November, following news coverage, Gov. Chris Gregoire ordered Ecology to hasten cleanup of the area.

At the same time, the Port of Vancouver continues to negotiate to buy the 208-acre property for redevelopment into new industrial uses.

Regardless of who owns the property, the legally binding “consent decree” puts the burden of cleanup on Alcoa.

“It has taken a lot of extra work, but getting the dredging done this year was the right decision for this project and the environment,” Ecology Director Jay Manning said in a prepared statement.

Dredging will begin shortly after Nov. 1 and wrap up by the beginning of February.

Previous tests of the shoreline revealed PCBs at a level as high as 28,000 parts per billion in a hot spot near the location of an outfall pipe laid by Clark Public Utilities in a trench from its River Road Generating Plant. State officials said they believe the PUD’s trench mobilized PCB-tainted sediment in the upland area of the smelter site, contaminating the shoreline.

“(The PUD) trenched through Alcoa’s property through the riverbank and into the river bed,” said Kim Wigfield, who supervises Ecology’s refinery and smelter unit. “As a result of that, all those soils were disturbed and provided an avenue for PCB contamination to get to the river.”

As laid out in the proposed cleanup action plan, the company will have to reduce the level of PCBs in the shoreline to 320 ppb. The dredged area will be topped by a clean layer of sand, leaving a residual level of 97 ppb.

Alcoa still is awaiting a dredging permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.

Update

Previously:

Researchers last year revealed alarmingly high levels of PCBs in the tissue of clams living in the Columbia River shoreline near Alcoa’s defunct aluminum smelter in Vancouver.

What’s new:

Alcoa and state Department of Ecology reached a formal agreement this week spelling out cleanup of the 208-acre property and PCB- tainted shoreline.

What’s next:

The public has 30 days to review the proposed order. Once it’s adopted, and Alcoa receives a permit required by the Army Corps of Engineers, dredging will begin in November. The company proposes to remove 56,000 cubic yards of PCB-tainted mud.

Share Your opinion

Review the cleanup agreement between Alcoa and the state Department of Ecology at

www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/swfa/industrial/alum_alcoavan.htm

The agency will host a public meeting at 7 p.m. Sept. 30 in Foster Auditorium at Clark College.

Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551, erik.robinson@columbian.com

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Originally published by ERIK ROBINSON Columbian staff writer.

(c) 2008 Columbian. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.