Georgetown excavation prepares for cleanup in Duwamish Waterway

by Larry Altose, communication manager, Northwest Regional Office

Workers use water to control dust as an excavating machine lifts soil into a dump truck. When hauled away for disposal, the soil will be covered.


On leaving the work area, the truck receives a spray cleaning to prevent the trackout of dust or mud onto neighborhood streets.

The Boeing Co. and the city of Seattle have begun work to remove contaminated soil and groundwater from the north end of Boeing Field and the adjacent Georgetown Steam Plant property under an environmental cleanup agreement with the Washington Department of Ecology.

Read details here.

Cleanup Projects

The excavation is one of several projects that follows a lengthy investigation aimed primarily at PCBs (polychlorinated bihenyls) found in storm drains that empty into Slip 4, a Duwamish Waterway inlet near Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will oversee a cleanup of contaminated sediment on the bottom of Slip 4 this fall.

The projects have begun to reduce the concentrations of PCBs found in the storm drains that serve a 137-acre area that drains to Slip 4. Cleanup work in the North Boeing Field/Georgetown Steam Plant area will help reduce potential re-contamination of the inlet.

For more information

About Slip 4, the North Boeing Field/Georgetown Steam Plant area and the overall Lower Duwamish Waterway cleanup:

• Georgetown Steam Plant/North Boeing Field interim cleanup action overview (Ecology)
  
  
• Fact Sheet on Georgetown Steam Plant/North Boeing Field interim cleanup action (pdf, Ecology)
  
  
• Slip 4 drainage area source control (Ecology)
  
  
• Planned Slip 4 cleanup (EPA)
  
  
• Overall Lower Duwamish cleanup (Ecology)
  

---