Comments

1
Duwmaish-->Duwamish in the penultimate paragraph.
2
@2: Mesi anpil.
3
@2 bless you.
4
It's seems like this article really made EPA finally get their heads out of their asses - I actually just heard from someone at EPA that they will extend their comment period till midnight because they've been receiving a lot of comments after this article was issued. Let's inundate their mother f*cking inboxes with comments! http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5168/p/dia/a…
5
What he meant to say was "notebooks" and "ill-gained" - but everything else is spot on. ;)
6
Breaking news: EPA will accept comments until MIDNIGHT tonight: ldpc@resolv.org
or via: http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5168/p/dia/a…
7
Please be more informed about you statements. Where is the money coming from to perform this cleanup? Are people shouting in a town hall meeting going to provide hundreds of millions of dollars out of nowhere for cleanup? (No) Can you be any more specific than "the toxins"? Also this description of chemical transport is incorrect.

It's a big step forward to be cleaning up a large portion of the Duwamish when you consider how long Seattle has been trashing it. Pollution can remain in sediment for ages; look at Commencement Bay in Tacoma as one example of a Superfund site where that is the case. However, if you ever want to get the pollution out I'd like to hear a better option than dredging (which is closely monitored to prevent sediment transport).

Cleanup like this is a major effort and there are entire industries dedicated to doing it the right way. They're cleaning up areas which are in the budget of the current scope and they're doin a damn good job. Let them handle it.
8
"All of this is being determined by the data and analysis."

DRCC/TAG's Technical Assessment and Recommendations:
- http://duwamishcleanup.org/superfund-inf…
UW School of Public Health's Health Impact Assessment and Recommendations:
- http://deohs.washington.edu/hia-duwamish
EPA's Environmental Justice Assessment and Recommendations:
- http://www.epa.gov/region10/pdf/sites/ld…

All the data and assessments lead to the same conclusion: We Can Do Better.
9
Can casinos be considered toxic waste?
10
Wait, I'm confused. Do we want to dig out the toxic mud or not? Thanks for this post, but we need an "action step" that includes a coherent mssseage please. What should we tell yhe epa?
11
To ask for a better cleanup, see recommendations here: http://duwamishcleanup.org/superfund-inf…
Or go direct to the super-easy comment page at: http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5168/p/dia/a…
12
Thanks for posting this. As I understand it, the EPA proposal has four types of action:

1) Dredging the contaminated waste out
2) Covering it with sand and gravel caps
3) Enhanced monitoring
4) Doing nothing

Many people who I respect have made the case that removing more of the contaminated waste is the most certain and permanent solution. The other three actions don't do much to solve the problem. Even capping which sounds OK to a degree is an uncertain and temporary fix.
13
I know several people who work at EPA and I don't think they are unaware of solutions that will miraculously improve outcomes. I also don't think they are recalcitrant, bumbling, or not passionate enough. The 3 things people who say "we can do better" often forget are these:

1. Scale (size) - there are all kinds of remediation technologies that work in labs and field tests and utterly fail when deployed to MILES of contaminated river. Also Scale (time) - "better" remediation options have to compensate for DECADES of contamination, not just general contamination AND have to LAST FOR DECADES. A lot of suggestions for "better" solutions fail one or both of these scale tests.

2. Money - our duly elected congress killed the tax that fed the Superfund 2 decades ago. Cost matters. If 30% more money yields a 2% better result, the EPA has to ask itself if its worth the investment.

3. We already did stuff we cannot undo, and we did it for decades. There is no realistic path to a pristine or even marginally "clean" Duwamish. We fucked ourselves over hard. The same way people talk about how you never stop being an alcoholic... Well we can't unfuck the Duwamish. But we can do better. The time isn't now. It's now and every year from now on for decades. We should do better. But we have to do better realistically.

Please wait...

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