Port asks for delay in cleanup

Portland Harbor - Officials want at least two more years to construct a dump to hold dredged-up toxic sediments

Thursday, August 23, 2007

ALEX PULASKI -The Oregonian Staff

The Port of Portland asked federal officials Wednesday for a delay of at least two years in designing and building a disposal site for toxic sediments dredged from the Willamette River.

The sediment dump, to be built at the Port's Terminal 4 on the river in North Portland, is scheduled for construction next year. Port managers, in interviews and a letter sent Wednesday to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said spiraling costs and delays in an overall Superfund river cleanup had caused them to ask for an extension.

"We've just gotten out of sync with the harborwide schedule," said Cheryl Koshuta, the Port's chief environmental officer.

An EPA official said the agency hasn't had time to consider the Port's request.

"We'll be digesting it for some period of time," said Sean Sheldrake, the EPA's project manager for early action for the nine-mile stretch of river known as Portland Harbor.

The dump project has faced considerable public opposition, mostly over potential risks of contaminants finding their way back into the river. Sediments are laced with chemicals, pesticides and heavy metals, the legacy of decades of Portland-area industry.

Public comments to the EPA have run about 14-1 in opposition to the site's construction. But the Port and EPA maintain that the dump could both contribute to an early cleanup of the river near Terminal 4 and hold as much as 850,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment from elsewhere in the Willamette.

The two agencies have been locked in a dispute over design, however, and Koshuta acknowledged that the disagreement had contributed to the Port's request for a delay.

In May, the EPA notified the Port in a draft position paper that it intended to apply stringent design and water-quality monitoring standards to ensure that chemicals don't seep from the unlined dump site back into the river.

In its Wednesday letter to the EPA, the Port said that in the past two years the estimated costs of building the disposal site have escalated roughly 60 percent, to $51.8 million.

In an interview, Koshuta said the Port is not retreating from its commitment to clean up Terminal 4 or build the disposal site. But she said uncertainties over the extent of the entire river cleanup made it imprudent to construct a dump that might prove larger or costlier than necessary.

One of the chief critics of the disposal facility plan said Wednesday that she was encouraged by the Port's request for more time.

Jane Harris, executive director of the Oregon Center for Environmental Health, has been pressing the Port to consider more expensive alternatives of cleansing and reusing tainted sediments.

"I think the Port wants to slow this process down," Harris said, "because they're beginning to see this is going to cost them a lot more than they're willing to spend."

Alex Pulaski, 503-221-8516; alexpulaski@news.oregonian.com