Portland, Oregon – In a significant step towards addressing the long-standing issue of contamination in Portland Harbor, oil and chemical firms have agreed to pay millions of dollars to restore the area. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been warning for decades about the high levels of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) found in fish that reside year-round in Oregon’s Lower Willamette River. This settlement marks a crucial milestone in the efforts to protect public health and restore the river’s ecosystem.
The Portland Harbor Superfund site, spanning a 10-mile stretch between the Broadway Bridge and the southern tip of Sauvie Island, has been a cause for concern due to the presence of PCBs. Approximately 150 parties, including some of the largest corporations in the United States, are considered potentially responsible for the contamination.
Polluters named in the Portland Harbor Superfund site cleanup agreements already filed in court are:
– Schnitzer Steel Industries (rebranded as Radius Recycling)
– Daimler Trucks North America
– Vigor Industrial, the largest ship repair and modernization operation in the region
– Cascade General, which owns and operates Portland Shipyard
– NW Natural, a natural gas distributor
– Arkema Inc., a chemical manufacturer based near Paris, France
– Bayer Crop Science Inc., a German multinational corporation which produces herbicides, and insecticides that the 2020 EPA Administrative Settlement court documents linked to “cancer risks and noncancer health hazards from exposures to a set of chemicals in sediments, surface water, groundwater seeps, and fish tissue from samples collected at the Site.”
– General Electric Company, a New York company that has polluted surface water, groundwater, sediment, and fish tissue with 64 contaminants of concern, including PCBs, PAHs, dioxins and furans, as well as DDT and its metabolites DDD and DDE (collectively, DDX);
– oil companies Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Kinder Morgan Liquids Terminals LLC, McCall Oil and Chemical Corporation, Phillips 66 Company, and Shell Oil Company, Company, BP Products North America Inc., and ExxonMobil Corporation
– towboating and barging company Brix Maritime
– Union Pacific Railroad Company
– FMC Corporation, an American herbicide and fungicide manufacturer based in Pennsylvania
The settlement includes over $600,000 in damages for the public’s lost recreational use of the river, and restoration and monitoring of culturally significant plants and animals. Under the settlement agreements responsible parties will contribute an estimated $33.2 million in cash damages. They may also purchase credits for projects aimed at restoring the lost natural resources, particularly salmon, affected by the contamination in the Willamette River.
The restoration efforts will focus on rejuvenating the river’s ecosystem and mitigating the harm caused by the release of pollutants from their facilities. The significance of this settlement is that it holds those responsible accountable for their actions and provides necessary funding for the restoration of the Portland Harbor. The restoration projects will not only help to address the immediate environmental concerns but also ensure the long-term health and sustainability of the river and its surrounding ecosystem.
“This settlement represents years of hard work by the Portland Harbor natural resource trustees and responsible parties who cooperated to restore the harm caused by those parties’ contamination. The resulting restoration projects funded by these agreements will provide permanent ecological benefits to help restore the biodiversity of the Willamette River system,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
