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Portland Harbor, a working port and one of the nation’s most complex superfund sites.
A not-so-super cost estimate At $746 million, the EPA’s lowball price tag for cleaning up the Portland Harbor Superfund site is ‘wishful thinking,’ according to one important critic.
By RICHARD MASSEY Managing Editor
nesses potentially liable for the river’s pollution, all said the cost estimate is way too low. Since those entities could end up paying the lion’s share of the cleanup costs, the price tag for them is a key point of emphasis. And the EPA, they say, got it wrong. “We recognize there are a lot of uncertainties around cost at these early stages. This is one of the most complicated sites in the country. We’re confident EPA can adjust those numbers to be more accurate.” “The City believes the proposed plan underesti- mates the actual cost of the Alternative I by as much as 50 percent to 100 percent,” says the city in response to the EPA’s plan. Taking the city’s estimate into account, the clean- up cost would look more like $1.1 billion to
T he Environmental Protection Agency recently released its feasibility study for the remedia- tion of one of the nation’s most complex superfund sites, the harbor along the Lower Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, and was roundly criticized for botching the cost estimate. The 10-mile stretch of waterway, contaminated by PCBs, PAHs, DDT, and heavy metals, has been an ongoing source of conflict and environmental plan- ning since at least 2000, when the site was desig- nated as a superfund. But the EPA, in announcing its preferred $746-million remediation plan – lim- ited dredging and capping, and a predominance of monitored natural recovery – only raised more questions. The biggest of which, based on comments from interested parties, seems to be this: How did you come up with your numbers? The City of Portland, the Port of Portland, and the Lower Willamette Group, a consortium of busi-
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