Boeing once described the Duwamish River as “a natural collector” for its wastes. The Port of Seattle says the company won’t pay its fair share for the cleanup.
SEATTLE — In its early days as a major aircraft manufacturer, Boeing was remarkably open about toxic chemicals flowing from its factory into the neighboring Duwamish, Seattle’s only river and a longtime source of food, tradition and culture for Indigenous people.
In court papers accusing Boeing of trying to slough off its share of the cleanup bill, the Port said the total cost could top $1 billion. The sum is more than double any estimate previously made public, and it would make the Duwamish one of the nation’s costliest cleanups on record. Government websites still put the cost at about $340 million.
Boeing declined to comment on the private negotiations or disclose the exact amount it agreed to pay, but it said that the company expects to spend “hundreds of millions of additional dollars.” Meanwhile, people who have waited for the Duwamish to be restored say they worry about the lack of information available to the public.
What was once a complex ecosystem of mudflats, native plants and spawning fish became a sprawling industrial corridor. Along the river now are large health advisory signs warning the public not to eat bottom-feeding fish and to limit consumption of certain salmon, a warning system King County calls “Fun to Fish, Toxic to Eat.” Even direct contact with river mud is a risk, the state health department warns. Tribal fishing, protected by an 1855 federal treaty, continues along the river despite declining fish populations and public health warnings.
“We didn’t know in 1950 that PCBs were going to be persistent and as toxic as they are,” Collier said. The chemical wasn’t banned by the EPA until the 1970s. “They were worried about the stigma it would cast on the city, and some believed that they could clean the river up faster and better without EPA dogging their efforts,” BJ Cummings, community engagement manager for University of Washington’s Superfund Research Program, wrote in her book “The River That Made Seattle,” which details the Duwamish’s history.
Even where the negotiators meet, who is in the room and what evidence is considered are secret. But court documents and interviews offer a few intriguing details about the process so far. Both King County and the city said in separate statements that they believe the ongoing allocation process has been “thorough and fair.” Both said they plan to make their individual shares public once the process wraps up, but neither one plans to release the full report. The reason, the city wrote in an email, is that it “contains each party’s sensitive operational and financial information.
“I know that industries along the river made a lot of money at the expense of our waterway,” Forsman said. The community is less concerned with who pays the bill than with making sure the cleanup happens on schedule, said López, the executive director of the community coalition.What is known about the Duwamish cleanup publicly is that it has already cost a lot — and U.S. taxpayers have picked up a big chunk of the bill so far.
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