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Department of Ecology News Release - December 5, 2002
02-220
OLYMPIA - Two new state grants worth more than $6 million will help pay to remove contaminated sediments from Commencement Bay.
Since 1993, the state Department of Ecology (Ecology) has passed along more than $17 million from the local toxics control account to help clean up Commencement Bay sites. This amounts to 11 percent of the total amount the fund has provided statewide since it was created.
The latest grants include $4.67 million to the Port of Tacoma to dredge about 500,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediments from the mouth of the Hylebos Waterway up to the 11th Street bridge. Sediments that are clean enough will be taken to a marine disposal site. The rest will be put into a permanent containment cell in a former shipping slip on Blair Waterway. The cell will be capped and put into use to serve as additional port property.
The second grant, of $1.6 million, will help reimburse the city for cleaning and restoring the Olympic View Resource Area, located between the Thea Foss and Middle waterways.
"Acre by acre, we're making real, tangible cleanup progress in Commencement Bay," said Jim Pendowski, who manages Ecology's toxics cleanup program. "The toxics grant program continues to get dramatic results for the environment."
The Commencement Bay cleanup has been a coordinated effort involving local, state and federal authorities. The port and the city own the polluted sites, the state is working to identify and block major pollution sources, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency is leading the work to remove polluted sediments beneath the bay.
The Hylebos Waterway is one of three remaining waterways in the Commencement Bay area requiring cleanup under the federal Superfund program. Dredging work for the remaining reaches of the Hylebos is slated for 2003 and 2004.
The Olympic View Resource Area is a shoreline site being restored to renew inter-tidal aquatic habitat, including eel grass, for fish and wildlife. The sediments at the site were contaminated with a variety of chemicals, including PCBs. The restoration work was completed in September.
EPA Web site: http://yosemite.epa.gov/R10/CLEANUP.NSF/88b0452f26c113d88825685f006ab43f/e8d62480494ad483882564f80082a1c0?OpenDocument
Olympic View Restoration Web site: http://www.darcnw.noaa.gov/olympic.htm (Link removed 07/26/04.)
Note to news editors: For a list of the state local toxics control account grants that have been given for Commencement Bay cleanup since 1993, please contact Sandy Howard at 360-407-6239.
Contacts: Sandy Howard, Department of Ecology, 360-497-6239Copyright © Washington State Department of Ecology. See http://www.ecy.wa.gov/copyright.html.
