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Department of Ecology News Release - December 23, 2008
08-337
BELLEVUE - The owner of an industrial property in South Seattle has signed agreements with the Department of Ecology (Ecology) to conduct several tests and develop plans to clean up soil and groundwater contamination in and around the site.
Ecology invites the public to review and comment on the agreements - an Agreed Order and a Public Participation Plan - between the department and Fox Avenue Building LLC. The building is located at 6900 Fox Ave. S., about a block from the Duwamish Waterway.
A variety of industries have operated at the 2.5-acre location, dating back to 1918. In the 1990s, Great Western Chemical - a former occupant of the site - conducted soil and groundwater studies, which detected chlorinated solvents, petroleum hydrocarbons, semi-volatile organic compounds, dioxins and furans on the property. The studies also detected a plume of chlorinated solvents extending beyond the property line. The two-acre plume reaches the Duwamish at the head of the Myrtle Street Embayment, a small inlet.
Great Western conducted a partial cleanup on the Fox Avenue Building property. Fox Avenue Building LLC's activities under its agreement with Ecology would lead to a final Cleanup Action Plan.
Cleanup of the Fox Avenue Building site and its plume will form part of Ecology's larger effort to control sources of contamination in Duwamish Waterway sediments - the mud at the bottom. Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) jointly administer the Lower Duwamish Waterway cleanup site to clean up contaminated sediments in the five miles upstream of Harbor Island.
The proposed Agreed Order and Public Participation plan for the Fox Avenue site are available at:
Comments on the order and plan should be sent by Jan. 30, 2009, to Sunny Becker, Ecology site manager, at:
The Duwamish flows to Puget Sound. Cleanup of the waterway is a significant part of Ecology's effort to reduce and prevent toxic threats to the environment and to support the Governor's Puget Sound Initiative - a cooperative effort among state, local, federal and tribal governments, businesses and organizations to protect and restore Washington's inland marine waters.
For more background on the Fox Avenue Building site, please see Ecology's fact sheet on line at http://www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/0809111.pdf .
To learn more about the overall Lower Duwamish Waterway cleanup, please see http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/tcp/sites/lower_duwamish/lower_duwamish_hp.html .
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Ecology Media Contact: Larry Altose, media relations, 425-649-7009; pager 206-6631785; Sunny Becker, site manager, 425-649-7187
For more information:
Fox Avenue Building site:
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/tcp/sites/foxAve/foxAve_hp.html
Lower Duwamish Superfund site:
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/tcp/sites/lower_duwamish/lower_duwamish_hp.html
Copyright © Washington State Department of Ecology. See http://www.ecy.wa.gov/copyright.html.
