Downwaterers

Downwinders are people who were downwind of atomic blasts conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission and were exposed to airborne radioactive fallout.

We are downwaterers.

The lead story in this morning's Oregonian newspaper features the 11-mile-long river Superfund Site that we are downwater of. It's a heavily industrialized stretch of harbor and Oregon's biggest cleanup project. If you could put an "x marks the spot" on the map above, we would just to the top left. This map did not copy that well, but you get the idea -- the dots represent sites with high levels of contaminants, particularly noting PCBs, Dioxins/Furans, PAHs and DDT.

It says "The harbor's pollution is the product of a century of industrial production, from World War II shipyards and electrical transformer shops that spilled toxic PCBs to chemical plants leaking the pesticide DDT to natural gas production that generated toxic tar" and there are "114 responsible parties," and cleanup could run to more than $1.7 billion. $100 million dollars has already been spent sampling sediments and preparing the Superfund documents.

The gist of today's story is that the EPA says the "Lower Willamette Working Group" made up of the city, some agencies and industry, wrote a plan that "overestimates the payoff from low-cost 'natural' recovery" and underestimates the effectiveness of higher-cost options like dredging -- so EPA plans to rewrite it.

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/01/portland_harbor_superfund_opti.html

While the City of Portland has some of the best drinking water in the world, coming fresh from the pristine Bull Run watershed, we on the island are drinking well water which we hope is naturally filtered by the soil to be rid of these Superfund toxins.

No wonder moorage folks tell friends who come by for a swim on hot summer days to keep their mouths closed. I look outside and think about the wildlife who live in and eat what's in the water and make this stretch of downwater their home.