Lower Duwamish Waterway

Washington State Department of Ecology

Source Control Areas Map

Contacts and Links
Meetings & Events
Other Sites in the Lower Duwamish
8801 East Marginal Way South Site
Duwamish Shipyard Site
Jorgensen Forge
North Boeing Field/Georgetown Steam Plant Site

Background

The Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are working to clean up contaminated sediments and control sources of recontamination in the Lower Duwamish Waterway in cooperation with the City of Seattle, King County, the Port of Seattle, and The Boeing Company.

The Lower Duwamish Waterway site is approximately 5.5 mile portion of the Lower Duwamish River which flows into Elliott Bay.

The sediments along the river contain a wide range of contaminants due to years of industrial activity and run off from residential areas. These contaminants include PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), metals, and phthalates.

EPA is leading the sediment contamination investigation for the Lower Duwamish Waterway site. In September 2001, EPA added the Lower Duwamish Waterway site to the Superfund National Priorities List. For information on the Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund site, visit EPA’s web page: Lower Duwamish Waterway site. More information on the sediment contamination clean up can be found on the following sites: Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition (http://www.duwamishcleanup.org) and the Lower Duwamish Work Group (http://www.ldwg.org)

Ecology is leading the efforts to control sources of sediment pollution in the Lower Duwamish Waterway in cooperation with the City of Seattle, the Port of Seattle, King County, the City of Tukwila, and EPA.

Source Control is the process of finding and controlling releases of pollution to waterway sediments to prepare for cleanup and prevent sediment recontamination. Finding and controlling sources is difficult, and even with aggressive source control some recontamination may occur.

Seven areas along the river have been identified as candidates for high priority sediment cleanup.

The initial source control focus is on three early action areas: Duwamish/Diagonal, Terminal 117, and Slip 4 see site map.

Ecology is leading the interagency Source Control Work Group (SCWG). The SCWG shares information, discusses strategy, develops action plans, implements source control measures, and tracks progress. The SCWG includes:

Ø Ecology: Lead for source control at properties that discharge directly to the waterway and for source control work at upland contaminated properties;

Ø City of Seattle and City of Tukwila: Lead for source control within their storm drain systems;

Ø King County: Lead for source control for discharges to wastewater or combined wastewater and storm water systems;

Ø Port of Seattle: Lead for source control and contaminated upland property issues for Port properties; and

Ø EPA: Lead for Boeing Plant 2 and Rhone/Poulenc cleanup sites; provides technical assistance, source control coordination with EPA sediment investigation and cleanup activities.

Ecology and the SCWG wrote a Source Control Strategy for the Lower Duwamish Waterway. Click here to view the Strategy.

We will continue to expand this web page as additional information and documents become available. Please check back regularly for new information on source control activities in the Lower Duwamish Waterway.