Kicking off two months of public comment on the future of the Duwamish River, Sustainable West Seattle hosted a community forum to discuss the river’s past, present and future on Oct. 18 at Camp Long in West Seattle.

The forum coincided with the Lower Duwamish Waterway Group’s release of the Duwamish River Cleanup Alternatives Feasibility Study yesterday. The LDWG is comprised of identified responsible parties in polluting the Duwamish and includes the City of Seattle, King County, the Port of Seattle and Boeing. The study lays out options for cleanup and is officially open for public comment and scrutiny by the EPA. More information on the feasibility study can be found here.

“No decision has been made, they are all up for review,” Lori Cohen with the Environmental Protection Agency said at the forum. “We really want public feedback over the next couple of months.”

The forum panel included Port of Seattle Commissioner Rob Holland (who had an aide sit in for him), Lori Cohen from the EPA, Bob Warren from Washington State Dept. of Ecology, BJ Cummings of the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, Heather Trim from People for Puget Sound and Genevieve Aguilar from Puget Sound SAGE. Cecile Hansen, chair of the Duwamish Tribe, was scheduled to attend but was not present.

The main lodge of Camp Long was nearly filled with community members in attendance for the question and answer forum, hosted by Gary Lichtenstein, vice president of Sustainable West Seattle.

To start out, panel members discussed the progress that has been made and what needs to happen moving forward with the 5.5 mile stretch of Duwamish River. The Duwamish was declared a Superfund site in 2001 due to over a century of industrial and urban waste being deposited into the river.

From the EPA and Dept. of Ecology perspective, both Cohen and Warren said that over the past several years finding a path to cleanup the Duwamish has been a top priority for the agencies. They said the scientific data has been compiled to move forward and define a clear plan.

There are 29 acres of the 5.5 mile stretch of Duwamish that are considered “hotspots” by Cohen (where contamination is at its worst), and she expects cleanup of those hotspots to be done in the next couple of years.

Warren said the Dept. of Ecology has been focused on identifying sources of the pollution (primarily from storm water drains) and agrees with Cohen’s “worst first” approach to tackling the most polluted areas first in order to get the most out of the money spent. An estimated $1.3 billion will be spent on cleaning up the Duwamish over the course of several decades, the lion’s share of that bill to be covered by the LDWG, according to Cummings, coordinator for the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition.

Cummings said the future of the Duwamish River cleanup is a balancing act between five priorities including cultural (the needs of the Duwamish Tribe), fishing (both recreational and subsistence), recreational (kayaking, walking the shore, tours), habitat and the river’s roll as an “economic engine.”

“Can we combine these uses, can the Duwamish be a resource for all of Seattle or do we need to pick and choose?” she said.

She said the community needs to look at the alternatives for cleanup proposed in the feasibility study and put them up against their “vision” for the river, and that community ownership of the cleanup process has thus far been the biggest winner.

Trim with the People for Puget Sound said that progress has certainly been made since the river was designated a Superfund site in 2001, but that there is still much work to be done.

“15 to 20 years ago people looked at the river and said, ‘No way this will have habitat again,” Trim said. “Today, you can see areas where habitat and industry can cohabitate peacefully.”

Next, the panel members discussed the biggest problem moving forward.

For Trim, the biggest concern is focusing too much on cleaning up existing contaminants in the river without finding solutions for the ongoing pollution that enters the river every day through storm drains.

“We can’t just clean up the river and do it again in 40 years,” she said.

Cohen with the EPA countered Trim’s concern by saying cleaning up “historical contaminants” has proven successful at other cleanup sites and that ongoing pollution levels are much lower today than in the past.

“We are seeing that removing historical contaminants is successful and we need to do both (source control and existing pollution cleanup),” she said.

For Cummings, the biggest problem is that none of the proposed solutions in the LDWG feasibility study do enough to protect people that eat the resident contaminated fish and shellfish in the Duwamish.

“No fisherman left behind,” Cummings said, offering a slogan for her concern.

For the Dept. of Ecology, Warren said the biggest challenge is getting all of the identified polluters (there are more than the four who put together the feasibility study) to work with the department. He did not offer specifics, but said there are four groups refusing to sign cleanup agreements while 15 have signed.

Warren added that there is a lot of work ahead in identifying specific sources of pollution, and that “immense resources are being put into this challenge.” He offered the specific example of PCBs being found in caulk used by Boeing and others in the industrial area.

“We are finding it everywhere,” he said of the noxious caulk used as a buffer between concrete slabs. The DOE plans to do a study in the Duwamish area to find other sources of PCB beyond Boeing.

As a side note, Boeing started cleaning up the caulk in its most contaminated areas on Sept. 15 and is scheduled to have it all cleaned up by next fall, according to Cohen.

Aguilar with Puget Sound SAGE said the biggest issue (that to this point has not been studied by the EPA or Dept. of Ecology) is air pollution impacting the Duwamish, primarily from truck emissions around the port.

The forum shifted to a question and answer format where members of the audience were invited to speak their mind.

Several audience members asked how exactly companies and governments identified as polluters help with the cleanup.

The basic answer, provided by Cohen, is that they pay for it. Warren added that they are required to perform and pay for their own studies on how to cleanup the Duwamish and that the entire process is overseen by the EPA and DOE.

Another question from the audience was how they can learn about the feasibility study, a 682-page behemoth, without reading it in its entirety.

Cohen suggested attending the upcoming meetings and workshops to learn about the document without having to read it all. She also said there is an executive summary of the study that condenses the information to 42 pages.

Cummings added that the DRCC has staff scientists reading over the study now and that they will have a fact sheet of a couple pages available for the community at workshops and online by the end of October. They will have an even more detailed fact sheet by early December, she said.

One community member said, “We as West Seattle people tend to do things on our own. What can we do individually to help?”

Warren responded, “We are all part of this and we need to look at what we do individually with regards to our cars, our homes and our waste.”

The panel offered a number of common sense tips to reduce individual impact on storm water runoff headed to the Duwamish or Elliot Bay, including not using pesticides, washing your car on the lawn instead of on concrete, driving less and watching out for fluid leakage from vehicles and watching out for what goes down your drain – from shampoos and detergents to prescription drugs.

“The biggest impact people in West Seattle can make is to contribute to these discussions,” Trim said.

“Get involved, it will make a difference for decades to come,” Cummings said to the community members in attendance.

The public comment session for the Duwamish River Cleanup Alternatives Feasibility Study runs until Dec. 23 and there will be several workshops and public meetings before the deadline.

Community workshops put on by the DRCC will be held on Nov. 8, 9, and 15 and there are two public hearings on Dec. 7 and 9. For specific times and locations visit www.duwamishcleanup.org or contact BJ Cummings at 206-954-0218 or BJ@duwamishcleanup.org.

Cohen said the EPA will make its final decision on the Duwamish River cleanup in January of 2012.