Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Duwamish River: "Should the cleanup make fish safe to eat regularly?"

Decades of dumping of PCBs, arsenic, dioxins, and other waste led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to label the Duwamish River a Superfund site, meaning it's one of the worst toxic messes in the country.

Robert McClure (InvestigateWest):
The local governments, Boeing, and the state and federal officials say they’re aiming to get the Duwamish as clean as other local waterways, such as Elliott Bay and Lake Washington — but nobody should be eating many fish out of those water bodies, either. The local governments and Boeing argue that the lower Duwamish River shouldn’t be held to a higher standard just because it was designated a Superfund site.

“We want to bring the risks down as low as we feasibly can,” said Dave Schuchardt, strategic advisor at Seattle Public Utilities. “There’s a feasible level of what you can get to.” MORE...

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