  |
|
|
Department of Ecology News Release - March 4, 2009
09-052
BELLEVUE – The major owners of the former South Park Landfill in Seattle have signed an agreement with the Department of Ecology (Ecology) to test soil and groundwater for contamination in and around the site, as the first step toward its long-term cleanup.
Ecology invites the public to review and comment on the accord – called an Agreed Order – and an accompanying public participation plan and environmental review.
The 40-acre area in the 8100-8200 blocks of Second Avenue South once contained a municipal waste landfill, operated by the City of Seattle on King County-owned property. The landfill stopped accepting waste in 1966 when Seattle opened its South Transfer and Recycling Station. The landfill site, as currently known, includes the city’s station, property owned by South Park Property Development LLC, and part of the Kenyon Business Park.
An auto-wrecking yard and truck storage facilities have also used parts of the property.
Environmental studies performed by King County in the 1980s and 90s detected groundwater contamination from arsenic, dichloroethene, trichloroethene, and vinyl chloride. The groundwater contamination may extend beyond the property. Landfill gas also is present at the site.
The Agreed Order with the city and South Park Property LLC outlines a series of steps to study the nature and boundaries of the site’s contamination, including reviews of the earlier studies. The order also sets up a process for evaluating cleanup options and developing a draft cleanup plan. All of these stages would be subject to public review and comment and Ecology review and approval.
The South Park Landfill site is approximately 1,500 feet from the Duwamish Waterway. The cleanup may contribute to a 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 oversee the Lower Duwamish Waterway cleanup site for contaminated sediments in the five miles upstream of Harbor Island.
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.
The proposed Agreed Order and Public Participation plan for the South Park Landfill site are available at:
Comments on the order and plan should be sent by April 8, 2009, to Ching-Pi Wang, Ecology site manager, at:
For more background on the South Park Landfill site, please see Ecology’s fact sheet on line at www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/0909094.pdf.
To learn more about the overall Lower Duwamish Waterway cleanup, please see www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/tcp/sites/lower_duwamish/lower_duwamish_hp.html.
###
Media Contacts:
Larry Altose, Ecology media relations, 425-649-7009; pager 206-663-1785
Ching-Pi Wang, Ecology site manager, 425-649-7134
For more information:
South Park Landfill site:
www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/tcp/sites/sParkLF/southPark_LF_hp.html
Lower Duwamish cleanup site:
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.
