Seattle City Council Parks, Public Utilities and Technology Committee 3/26/2025

Oh, we're here.

I guess we're on.

I missed the beautiful intro.

Good afternoon, everyone.

March 26th, 2025 meeting of Parks, Public Utilities and Technology Committee will come together.

It is 2.03 PM.

I'm Joy Hollingsworth, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Kettle?

Here.

Council member Rivera?

Council member Strauss?

Present.

Council President Nelson?

Present.

Chair Hollingsworth?

I'm here.

Chair, there's four council members present.

Awesome.

Thank you.

On the agenda today, we're gonna go over ordinance that authorizes Seattle City Light and utilities to expand funds and environmental cleanup efforts in the Lower Duwamish Waterway.

The Duwamish Waterway is Seattle's only river and holds significant cultural and environmental significance to our tribal communities and other communities that are located along that corridor.

I'm looking forward to having the conversation and we will now consider the agenda.

And if there's no objections, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing none, the agenda is adopted.

We're now gonna move into my favorite part of our committee meetings, which is public comment.

Public comments should relate to the items on today's agenda and be within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many speakers do we have signed up today?

We have one in-person and one remote speaker signed up.

Awesome.

Each speaker is going to have two minutes.

And will you please read the instructions to the public comment period?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

I will call on the speakers by name in the order in which they registered, both on the council website or from the signup sheet available here in chambers.

We'll start with in-person speakers first.

If you have not registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of the public comment period by going to the council's website or by signing up on the signup sheet near the public comment.

Microphone.

The online link is listed on today's agenda.

When speaking, please begin by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of the allotted time.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speakers' microphones will be muted to allow us to call on the next person.

Awesome.

And the first speaker up, I'm assuming, is Mr. Zimmerman.

My name Alex Zimmerman, I support Trump for 10 years and member, Make America Great Against member.

I want to speak about agenda, in agenda I see word investigation.

Who will make investigation?

Government.

There's two nuances I want to deliver to you.

Number one, for 40 years, I cannot find no honest man who worked for government in all three branches, never.

And second, second, absolutely critical.

Government people, include Seattle, give me 6,000 days of trespass.

I repeat this for idiots who don't understand what does this mean?

6,000 days of trespass.

1,500 from Seattle.

Transportation Board, three year for three year, three trespasses for three year.

Puget Sound Regional Council, three trespasses for three year, and one trespass for three years.

Seattle in School Board, three trespasses for three year, and another hundred trespasses were too small, I don't want talking about this.

How an American citizen can feel good when you have a government, idiotic, 6,000 trespass for Alex Zimmerman?

It's no analogy in human history.

I don't think so.

doing for people 6,000 trespasses.

Maybe cut them, you know what it means, or crucify them.

But 6,000 trespasses, I will speak about this, so everybody will know how dirty, stupid, idiotic, Nazi, big government we have.

Viva Trump, viva New American Revolution, viva MAGA, stand up, idiota!

Thank you very much.

All right, we have the next speaker.

And just for the record, Z.

Kyle is an anti-Semitic remark that was referred to in the Nazi party.

And we, that is what you heard today at the beginning of these public comments.

I will continue to say that every time Mr. Zimmerman does that salute.

Next speaker online.

Okay, we will now move on to the remote public comment speaker.

Once I call the remote speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt, you have been unmuted, will be heard as the speakers queue.

David Haynes, please press star six.

Actually chair, I see that our remote speaker is not present.

Okay, well, that is a fit.

Online commenter is not present, you said?

No?

Okay.

Well, that will end our hybrid public comment period, and we will now jump into our items of business.

Will the clerk please read agenda item number one into the record?

Agenda item one, an ordinance relating to the Lower Duwamish Waterway authorizing Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities to continue expending funds to participate in environmental investigation and remediation of the Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund site.

For briefing, discussion, possible vote.

Presenting from Seattle Public Utilities is General Manager and CEO Andrew Lee and Ellen Stewart.

From City Light is Jason Hamilton, City Attorney's Office Laura Wishek, and Council Central Staff Brian.

Good night.

Awesome.

Thank you all for being here.

Really appreciate it.

Looking forward to the presentation.

Please introduce yourself for the record and you can just jump right into the presentation.

Great.

My name is Andrew Lee.

I'm the general manager CEO for Seattle Public Utilities.

Seattle Public Utilities.

Is that on?

Jason Hamilton, Seattle City Light.

Laura Wishek, Assistant City Attorney from the Seattle City Attorney's Office.

And Brian Goodnight from Council Central Staff.

Okay.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth and members of the committee.

We are here today to brief you on legislation that has been more than two decades in the making, which would allow the city to commit to pay for cleanup of contaminated sediments in the lower Duwamish River beyond the current budget cycle.

Before we dive into some details of the Duwamish, though, I'd like to start with a story.

As you may remember, the Duwamish River overtopped its banks on December 27th, 2022. sending a deluge of river water into approximately 50 homes and businesses.

SPU was one of the first responders to the flooding, and we spent most of 2023 helping customers and businesses restore their properties from all the flooding damage.

In early January of 2023, I was walking in the community, visiting the homes that had been damaged and talking with community members who had been affected.

I was struck, though, because one of the questions that I repeatedly was asked by community was, do I need to be testing my home for contaminated sediments?

Is my family now at risk for exposure to PCBs, a known carcinogen, because of the floods?

The Lower Duwamish River is an area of the city that has long suffered from environmental justice issues.

The health disparities in this community have been well documented for more than a decade, including the disparities in life expectancy and asthma rates.

There are also infrastructure disparities, and then the topic we are here to discuss with you today, which is the contaminated sediment.

The Lower Duwamish Waterway has been Seattle's major industrial corridor since the early 1900s.

The result of that use is the waterway sediments are contaminated with more than a century's worth of toxic chemicals, chemicals which come from many sources, including stormwater runoff, wastewater, and industrial practices.

Since the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency's decision to list the Lower Duwamish River as a Superfund site in 2001, the city has been working with King County, the Port of Seattle, and the Boeing Company to investigate the contamination, clean up hot spots, and implement EPA's cleanup plan for the contamination.

Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities each have liability for the toxic pollution.

SPU is acting as the lead department for the city.

The legislation before you today is a culmination of more than two decades of work to address this historic environmental injustice.

I count it personally as both an obligation and a privilege to be taking part in this cleanup, which is making right over a century of pollution that has affected the community, the environment and the tribes that fish along the Duwamish.

With me here today are Jason Hamilton, who's Seattle City Lights environmental management compliance manager.

Laura Wishek, the Director of the Environment Section in the Seattle City Attorney's Office, and Ellen Stewart, who is the Deputy Director of SPU's Drainage and Wastewater Line of Business.

I'll now turn the presentation over to Ellen Stewart, who will provide you with more background and context on the legislation before you today.

Ellen Stewart- Thank you, Andrew.

It's nice to be with you here today.

We are here today to talk about our efforts to clean and restore the Lower Duwamish Waterway, which is a vital economic, cultural, and ecological resource for Seattle.

It consists of a five-mile stretch between Harbor Island and what's known as the Turning Basin near South Park.

And as Andrew mentioned, this river is very important to the communities of South Park and Georgetown, who call this river home.

EPA leads the cleanup work under the Federal Superfund law, and the city has been working with our partners since the year 2000 to complete investigations, conduct early cleanup actions, find and remove both historical and ongoing sources of pollution, and do engineering design work.

Last November, the Lower Duwamish Waterway Group, which consists of the city, King County, and Boeing, hit a major milestone and began the full-scale cleanup of the river.

Before discussing the legislation itself, I'd like to use a few slides to recap why the city is involved and where we stand now on this important work.

Under Superfund case law, both SPU and Seattle City Light have some portion of cleanup liability due to their utility functions.

SPU is liable due to contaminants and historic combined sewer overflows that drain to the river, discharges from an early sewage treatment plant, and contaminants and stormwater that pass through our system as they drain to the river.

Seattle City Light is liable due to ownership of sites where contaminants may have been released and ownership of transformers distributed at multiple locations.

Based on internal assessments the city has done, the utilities will split its share of the city's cost, 85% to SPU and 15% to Seattle City Light.

Both departments use ratepayer funds to cover the costs of their liabilities.

In other words, no general funds are used, and these costs are factored into our rate projections for both departments.

The reason that the Lower Duwamish Waterway is a Superfund site is that industrial contaminants have accumulated in mud, or as we call them sediments, at the bottom of the waterway.

These contaminants work their way up the food chain, And the main risk is to people who may eat resident seafood from the Lower Duwamish Waterway.

And this is really important because despite our best education efforts, we know that fishing still exists in this river for nearby residents.

The major contaminants of concern are industrial chemicals, particularly PCBs, arsenic, PAHs, and dioxins and furons, which are all associated with industrial use.

Salmon are safe to eat within their suggested limits because they migrate through the river, and there are active recreational and tribal fisheries for salmon in the Duwamish River.

In 2014, after extensive studies and public participation, EPA decided on the cleanup remedy for the Lower Duwamish.

The EPA process and our own outreach efforts have provided extensive community engagement during this process.

Most areas that require cleanup will be dredged to remove the contaminated material from the river bottom.

Some areas will be capped with clean gravel and sand and rock, and the entire site will be monitored well into the future.

The exact areas that will be cleaned up will be determined during the engineering design process.

And EPA has divided this five-mile stretch that I talked about into three reaches for cleanup.

And the cleanup will start upstream and then work its way downstream, and it's phased in this way so that we avoid recontamination as we work downriver.

The upper-reach design process was completed in 2023, and we began the three-year cleanup of that section last November.

And it takes three years because we can only operate and do cleanup operations during the fish window, which is from October to February of each year.

We need to be careful to protect spawning salmon in the river.

and then design for that middle reach should be complete in 2027, and then design for the lower reach starts this year.

We're really excited about this major milestone in the restoration of the river.

The community has borne the brunt of the impacts of this pollution for decades, and they have patiently waited for this long process to unfold.

And full cleanup construction will take about 10 years.

On the map here, you'll see the orange areas in the upper reach of the river, which are the areas that we're going to be dredging.

And on the right there, you'll see the dredging equipment that was working in that section of the river last November.

That's what the operation actually looks like.

The cleanup process is the culmination of a 25-year process that has involved cleaning up hot spots, identifying sources of historical and ongoing pollution, and working on the remediation design.

Personally, I started my career at the city 24 years ago as an inspector, identifying some of these sources of pollution to the Duwamish River.

And it's personally fulfilling to see the cleanup finally happening for this community and for the city.

To this point, the city, King County, and Boeing have worked under a unilateral order from the EPA.

This will change when we sign the consent decree for the full cleanup.

While all the settling parties will sign the consent decree, only three, the city, King County, and Boeing, will be the performing parties who will actually do the cleanup work.

The legislation that you will be asked to approve offers the city benefits that we don't have under the unilateral order.

And these benefits include protection from lawsuits and the receipt of settlement funds that we've been able to negotiate over the last few years.

The city will receive 88 million in settlement funds.

EPA has agreed to waive 10.5 million in oversight costs and then will also receive 5.5 million for costs incurred to date.

The city council is not being asked to approve the consent decree or the settlements because that authority, the charter gives that authority to the city attorney's office.

The council is being asked to authorize SPU and Seattle City Light to spend money in amounts and in years that go beyond our current budget cycle.

And state law provides that the legislature of a city may authorize by enacting an ordinance public utilities to make expenditures not contemplated in their annual budget.

And for a moment, let's just talk about what those costs are.

The EPA has estimated that over the next 30 years, those costs will be $667 million, and that's in 2023 dollars.

SPU has done its own estimating, and we think those costs are a little bit closer to 757 million, and that's in 2024 dollars.

And those costs are divided by the three performing parties that I talked about previously, Boeing at 53.6%, the city at 31.5%, and King County at 14.9%.

And those percentages are derived from their relative contribution to the pollution in the river.

The US government is also responsible for some of the contamination in the river, and they will pay $140 million.

That was achieved through settlement negotiations.

And then we have 39 other small parties that will collectively pay $141 million.

That was also achieved through settlement.

And then finally, we have one party, Lumen, who will pay $1 million annually rather than a lump sum.

Okay, so the chart on the left here depicts the funding splits among the three parties that I just shared with the city share, which is 31.5%, equaling about $238 million.

And again, that split is 85% SPU and 15% Seattle City Light.

And then moving along to the chart on the right, of that $238 million, you can see the 88 million in settlement funds, our portion of that, and the 11 million in waived EPA costs.

The remaining balance is eligible for state grants under the Model Toxics Control Act at up to a 50% match.

And if we get the 50% match, then the city's net cost would be about $70 million.

Now, these costs have been coming.

We know they've been coming for about 20 years, and they're included in both utilities budgets and in our rate projections and rate paths.

They are derived from revenue funds, once again, and do not come from the general fund at all.

You also may remember that last year we achieved a groundbreaking settlement with Monsanto Corporation, who produced PCBs in the past.

Some of that settlement will be used for the cleanup itself, and then other parts of that settlement will be used for projects along the river to do water quality treatment and other projects.

And we are especially grateful to the city attorney's office for their assistance in securing this settlement for the benefit of our rate payers.

So finally, right now, all the parties have signed the consent decree and the settlement agreements.

The Department of Justice gave preliminary approval.

That was under the Biden administration.

Once the legislation is passed at the city and King County, we will sign the consent decree and it will go back to the Department of Justice for final approval.

It will then be filed with the court.

There will be another public comment period.

And ultimately, it will be lodged with the court for final approval, which is when those settlements will take effect and we will receive those protections that I talked about earlier.

And that's all I have today.

Laura, Jason, and I are happy to take any questions that you have about this process.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much for that presentation.

I also know that council members had been brief about some of this and we had a executive session regarding some stuff as well.

So just want to thank you all for the preparation and stuff.

I don't know if, I know a lot of questions were answered when we did have our session, but if there's people that might have colleagues that might have questions about this, I see council member Strauss with his left hand raised, council member Strauss, or right hand.

I don't know if it was left or right.

It's a digital hand as well.

I just want to thank you all for the executive session.

I was not allowed to ask policy questions in the executive session because it was related only to the legal matters in which we won't be discussing today.

So I did save some of my questions for you today.

And one of them, before I jump in, Andrew Lee, Director Lee, CEO Lee?

Either way.

Thank you, sir.

You brought up the work that had been accomplished in South Park some time ago when the river overflowed the banks.

And so we can't say those words without also thanking Walter Vining and his entire team.

I know that they have been first responders also in my district, not during that same time period, but can't let the moment go without saying thank you to Walter and his entire team.

Diving into this presentation here, the questions that I have about the sections of monitoring, in-place treatment, or dredging, some of those colored boxes, they look to me to be overlapping.

We know that lines in the dirt are made by people and that the world and the earth works a little bit differently, maybe without those boundaries.

How were those decisions made?

And I'm looking specifically at, I'm sorry, I just lost the PowerPoint on my side, so I'm going to bring it right back up.

The slide with Kellogg Island in it.

You know, I see just north of Kellogg Island in place treatment next to a monitored, which is directly adjacent to a dredge with some monitoring areas in there.

I'm sorry I didn't give you this question ahead of time, but how did we come to those decisions?

How did we come to those decisions?

So the question is how do we really put the microphone up close to you?

So years and years of study and work and which included public participation, with multiple different remedies suggested to EPA, and this being what was landed upon by all of the experts.

May I dig a little bit deeper, pun intended here, which is to say, was there a point, a pollution that was coming from a point source or was distributed?

Because when I look at this, and I'm looking directly, north of kellogg island where we have light blue orange light green dark green all in what looks to be i gotta zoom in to see the the foot ratio here but it looks like all within about 500 feet How are we defining those zones?

And I know that there's science that backs all of this up.

I know that the EPA has a process.

I'm just trying to learn a little bit more about how did we come to that determination and how are we, from a lay person standpoint, if an area needs to be dredged, how is their monitoring area directly adjacent?

So there has been extensive monitoring that happens to determine where those hotspots are that's done by the EPA.

And so they do the monitoring all along the river to determine where the hotspots are and what remedies will be best to take care of them.

The exact borders and areas of the dredging and capping will be determined during the engineering process.

And then the monitoring, it's sort of an iterative process where that will go on for many years to make sure that we've got all of the contamination and so that monitoring will be well into the future to make sure that we have all of the pollution taken care of.

Thanks.

And you answered part, please.

Yeah, if I may.

Historically speaking, I think dredging, which is digging up the contaminated sediment and removing it, taking it off to kind of a hazardous landfill, was oftentimes viewed as the optimal, the primary kind of best sort of remediation in a situation like this.

Over time, though, studies have actually shown that when you dig up all of that debris, it actually releases.

a lot of those chemicals into the waterway.

And for even a short period, the elevation, the levels in the waterway are actually really elevated, right?

And that could be even more harmful to the fish and the environment.

Um, and so over time, they've looked at a variety of different technologies to remediate the soil.

And so, and sometimes what ends up happening is yes, the optimal way is to dig it up and remove it.

Hence the dredging.

Um, but other time what they call natural kind of attenuation or natural recovery, just simply letting it, um, letting over time that the natural sediment that simply moves along the riverbed will actually cause it protect the soils and will protect that layer of contaminated soil from getting to the surface.

In other cases, capping it, putting a layer of soil on top of it is actually the optimal way and leaving the sediment, the contaminated sediment below.

In all these different situations, we have standards that EPA has given us, and those standards are what we're ultimately trying to comply with.

And so it just, again, it's a highly kind of engineered based on the specific site conditions.

I will say the other factor that's in this is that this is a waterway, right, that's used for ships.

And so we'll find that in some cases, because we need to have certain depths removed, sometimes we do need to do dredging, right, whether or not it's the optimal.

And so, again, there's so many different factors that go into it, but the primary objective is to hit our, levels that we're trying to hit per the consent decree.

Thank you.

So with that additional information, as I'm looking at the light green and blue, it says to me that if things change in the course of remediation, those areas will be remediated and that may change to a dark green or an orange.

And part of the question that you answered for me was starting upstream, working downstream.

So you're not, it's like when you sweep the steps, you start at the top and you sweep down, right?

Because as you've already answered the question again, but as you're doing this work is more, are more of the problems coming to the surface?

And we also have infrastructure.

We have many bridges on the Duwamish and there's some places where we just cannot dredge because of the bridges or infrastructure that's there.

So in those cases, you know, we may not be able to do the remedies and we may need to, you know, sort of work within that as well.

So those are also factors in where the remedies are.

Thank you.

And have you, last question on here, where does the dredged soil go?

Do we have a location or just a toxic landfill?

It goes to a landfill.

Okay.

Hopefully we won't.

This is looking at you, Chair Joy.

Hopefully we won't be sending it to Oregon because that's where most of it goes.

Sorry, and I can wrap up if you want.

No, you're good.

Putting on my Chair of the Native Communities and Tribal Governments hat, have we engaged in government-to-government relations with federally recognized tribes that have treaty rights with the city?

Yes, we have.

That's done through the EPA officially.

And we were partners with them where the tribes wanted us to be partners and had meetings with the tribes where they wanted us to join those.

So the tribes are part of that participation process.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Last question, Chair.

Laura, during our executive session, you provided a deep background that was all regarding the legal aspect because you're our lawyer.

I was humbled.

by the amount of work that you've done and the longevity and the history that you have with this project.

I was wondering if you could share, this is a real softball for you, but anything you think we need to be aware of or is there anything from, my colleagues all joke here, even though I'm one of the younger members, they call me the historian.

So one historian to another, anything that we should be thinking about or anything that we should know about?

I guess I would emphasize the importance of continuing to control ongoing sources of contaminants, that SPU has been a leader nationwide in its source control program, and that needs to continue and even expand because we have to do the best we possibly can to prevent contaminants from continuing to go into the waterway.

On that, is it that we have current point sources that are not being mitigated?

It's not a point source.

If it were a point source, it would be easy.

We could just go there and fix it.

The problem is that some of these contaminants, like PCBs, have become ubiquitous.

They fall from the sky, they're blown around the world in winds, and they get into our stormwater.

And we can't go to a particular place in order to stop that.

It has to be done with the stormwater itself.

So I know Andrew and Ellen are on top of it.

I just would say from the council's perspective, it's an important project to keep doing.

That's really helpful because it reminds me that these waters need to...

When we look out to this bay, it used to all be tideland.

It all used to be the braids of the river extending into what is now called Elliott Bay.

And through the course of this slide, we can see that we've channeled this water in such a way that it...

I've been told that if we think of river deltas, they're like the lungs of the river.

And when we've constrained these lungs and had the, thank you for that.

If it was point source, it would be easy reminder.

Because I think of programs like at Green Lake right now, and I know SPU's done some other floating wetlands that are designed to clean the water from these non-point source contaminants.

Chair, I'll just give you one editorial and then I'll be done.

In my office this morning, we were having a conversation.

I don't remember how we got onto the conversation, but just the changes that have occurred with the Duwamish River, once being one of the most prosperous salmon runs.

When we closed off the Black River, we channeled the salmon through the locks in the ship canal.

which has created its own issues.

And then furthermore, the White River was re-channelized to Tacoma rather than coming through the Duwamish.

And while that might not seem like a big deal, what it has done is it has increased the water temperatures, making salmon survival harder.

So beyond all of this pollution that's here, we've re-channelized the salmon run.

We've made the current salmon run more difficult and thankfully we're working on this pollution right now.

But I just, beyond also paving over the river Delta.

So all of these things combined, it was just a reflection on how difficult we've made it for the salmon.

There's no question there, no final point there.

I just, it was a discussion we were having ad hoc in my office this morning, so I thought I would share our thoughts as well.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for all of your work.

You're making a generational change.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

And for the record, Councilmember Rivera is here and present in the body and spirit online as well.

Also did not know that landfills have a, they have a time span, like a lifespan.

So maybe we won't be sending most of our trash to Oregon after 20 or 30 years, but we are gonna keep sending it there, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Kettle, you were recognized.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth.

I'm not going to comment on that last point at all.

I just wanted to thank Mr. Lee and also Ms. Stewart from SPU for being here, Mr. Hamilton, and Ms. Wishek from the City Attorney's Office, and of course, Mr. Goodnight from our own central staff.

Thank you for both this briefing and the briefing that we got, as mentioned earlier.

Mr. Lee, I just wanted to thank you specifically for your comments on environmental justice and what's happening in this area of the city.

I think it's really important to note that.

And tied to that, sadly, the EPA under the Trump administration is shutting down all the EPA environmental justice offices.

I believe 168 people are being fired.

without cause, I should add, and without any long-term thought behind it.

Speaking of long-term, and by the way, my notes are here already written before my colleague was mentioning anything.

I've been to the Duwamish Longhouse and talked with them and talking about the Duwamish.

I've spoken with the Muckleshoot related to the White River point that was made.

Again, I've written this down before my colleagues started speaking to this.

And then the Green River piece too, although I did not write down Black River, but we'll add it here.

You know, oftentimes we do these acknowledgements and they're kind of rote, to be honest.

And I've had people say, hey, it's kind of empty.

But this is a time, this is a topic where the acknowledgement is really that much more important.

And based on those discussions that I've had with the Wamish at the Longhouse and with the Muckleshoot, related to the rivers is really important.

And it's really important for us to work with the tribal governments, which I understand is through the EPA.

But we have an indigenous advisory council, so there's no reason why potentially that we could do some work in that area as well.

And I think that's something that we should understand.

It's like we're going back on history in terms of the industrialization of the Duwamish River, but we really, as a city, really should be going back further and understanding that, like, how did we get here?

How did we get here is not related to Boeing or other organizations and what pollutants going in there.

We really should be thinking longer term than that.

And I really want to thank Ms. Wiscik for setting up my next question, which is already here, but you've given me that bridge, so I will cross it.

And it was related to your point about ongoing source of contaminants.

And this is one piece.

So Mr. Lee, from a broader perspective, can you speak to the other challenges, the environmental challenges that we're facing in this area?

Can you speak to our CSOs, our combined sewer stormwater outflows?

I know there's one to the west of Harbor Island and there's four to the east along the east channel.

Can you speak to that?

the challenges that we face.

And I understand not everything is final, so you can tailor your answer in terms of specificity to what you think is appropriate based on, you know, your understanding.

But can you speak to basically the point raised regarding ongoing sources of contaminants?

Yeah.

And I'm going to also let Ellen Stewart, who's actually far more of an expert on this than I am, but I'll start off at a high level.

whenever it rains, if there is PCBs or other chemicals on the lands or the buildings that consist in our city, those chemicals are going to fall and get into our waterways, ultimately.

We have two types of systems.

We have a separate stormwater system, and then we have a wastewater system.

And for the most part in this area, that wastewater system is a combined sewer system.

And so those are going to be the two systems that contribute the most chemicals, our separate stormwater system and then our combined system.

We have options in terms of how we address the pollutants before they get to the waterways.

The most cost effective always is going to be what we call source control, which is get the pollutants out even before they get into the system.

That can be done by things like changing what you manufacture, right?

And so you guys are maybe familiar with the That's been found in rubber and it leads to early mortality for certain species of salmon.

And so that is still found in all of our tires right now.

The best way to get rid of that is not to treat it at the end, but actually to remove it from the manufacturing process period.

And so we have active kind of efforts and work with the state.

to try to see if there are alternative ways to manufacture chemicals and things like that to get them out of the system.

The other way that we have is if it's still in the system and sometimes it's already been manufactured, it's already in the paint or the caulking of windows or whatever it may be, the rooftops, then we have ways to work with the building owners to actually try to remove it from the buildings.

And so there are remediation projects that are going on.

For example, EPA I believe has one right now at the Rainier.

building.

Um, that's, um, gosh, is that on airport way?

Yeah, Rainier Brewery.

And so, um, they're literally, they remediate the entire building.

They take out and they, they might sandblast the paint to remove it if that has PCBs.

And, um, and we have efforts to identify where the sources are the, the worst, right?

So for example, that's how that Rainier Brewery was identified.

Um, in other cases, there might've been a transformer that was, you know, spilled, right?

The, the fluid inside the transformer.

And that led to a high instead of PCBs.

And so that may be Uplend, and we work to clean that up.

If we've exhausted all of the source control and manufacturing kind of ways of removing the chemicals, then I would say our last kind of line of defense is the treatment at the end.

There are generally two types of treatment that we do, maybe three.

One is green stormwater infrastructure, where we're routing the stormwater, for example, into natural swales or bioretention filters.

And that's a wonderful way because it has an ecological benefit.

and it provides the greening of our city.

The other one, we have huge volumes and we need to treat it at the end of the pipe.

And that can take multiple forms, but generally speaking, we're talking about treatment facilities that are large.

We are planning on building one, for example, in the South Park area by 2030. The Georgetown treatment facility that I think both of you, Council Member Hollingsworth and Council Member Kettle both of you visited, that's owned by the King County Wastewater Treatment Division, and that's another type of treatment facility.

And we may be looking at partnership projects on King County's planning on building a very large facility.

It's called the MDCSO.

the mouth of Duwamish.

And that may be one where we look at a partnership opportunity to treat some stormwater in that facility at the same time as they're treating the combined sewage.

So that kind of provides an overview of all the types of things that we need to do to address recontamination before it occurs again.

And that last one relates to the East Channel and the four CSOs along essentially SOTO.

Yeah.

Um, the East waterway, yes, that, that big, um, again, the mod CSO project, the mouth of Duwamish, that is going to be a multi-billion dollar project that the county will be implementing.

Um, I believe their, their date of completion is 2035, um, possibly 2033. I'm just, I'm not remembering my dates.

Well, um, 35. Okay.

Um, and that's, that's, I think the estimates on that are about a $3.3 billion facility.

So it will be incredibly expensive.

but it will treat over a billion gallons of combined sewage a year.

And so it's a huge, huge project that will have an incredible benefit.

Thank you.

Those efforts combined with our recently completed Ship Canal project, which is different from the Georgetown and the, I haven't gotten the acronym down to our south, but the, you know, in combination is huge in terms of we as a city and a county, I should add, very much county are, you know, not polluting our waterways to particularly the sound in the Elliott Bay.

So, well, thank you for that.

Thank you for the background.

Chair.

Awesome.

And before I recognize you, Council President Nelson, Mr. Bryan, good night.

Did you have anything to add?

I'm sorry that I missed you.

No problems at all, Chair.

Thank you.

The only thing I was going to mention was purely a scheduling one, which is just that our partner, King County, it has been through their committee process, and it's scheduled for their full council consideration on April 1st, so just in terms of timing for them.

Thank you for that.

Council President Nelson.

Thank you very much.

As I said the other day or yesterday, I recognize how many people that are sitting before us here have been at this, and so thank you very much for this work, very important, and for sticking with it.

I wanted to take the opportunity to recognize the work of the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, now called Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, Cleanup, no.

Community Coalition.

Community Coalition, okay.

Like I said, they had been involved from, I guess it was 2001, and advocating on behalf of the people that lived in the river then and generations back.

And it's my understanding that they are the ones that, they did many things.

They established a River Duwamish Valley Visioning Plan in 2009. and they were constant advocates.

I know that they were always, when I was in Councilmember Richard Conlon's office, they were a partner and also a watchdog.

So I just have to say that I believe that they have their role in ensuring that the cleanup proceeds as well as it can, but bringing in the whole community, not the whole community, but bringing in the community.

And it was their, I think, insistence that a health impacts analysis be done.

And I think that was conducted by the University of Washington, which then led to some of the pages, the early pages in your presentation, which shows that people are still getting harmed.

And then required warnings and, you know, making sure that the community is informed.

Anyway, I just felt that it was really important to give them a shout out because they did so much good work.

And, of course, to recognize the leader, James Rasmussen, who was at the helm for so long.

That's it.

They have been an incredible partner with us and for us, and they also have done an amazing job keeping us accountable to our commitments.

So we consider them a very valuable resource for the city and the community.

Thank you for that.

Awesome.

I don't know if we have any more questions, but thank you all for the presentation.

I know that we'll be discussing this and it will come again before the committee so we can continue to move forward on the process, but just want to thank you all for all your hard work, your leadership on this.

I know that you all have been working on this for a long time, especially you, Laura, you said 30 plus years.

Is that correct?

I don't want to put you on the spot.

So you started at this when you were five.

Okay.

1990, I started on it.

1990, you started on this.

Wow.

And I'm sure you just, you want to continue for this to be over, right?

No, I'm just like...

Just kidding.

No, that's how much you care about our city and the environment and your commitment to this.

So just thank you so much for all your hard work and Director Lee, really appreciate you and your knowledge and your care and your passion for this and Ellen and Jason and the phenomenal, the illustrious Mr. Brian, good night.

Okay, well, that's gonna conclude our meeting today.

One cool interesting fact, since we're talking about the environment, if you want and you're watching this channel, go look up the Hurricane Hunters.

They're the coolest piece of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

You can look every time there is a hurricane within our planet, they fly their plane at 10,000 feet all through the eye of that hurricane to kind of get the wind speed, to understand when it's gonna hit, to get the timing.

They are really the true first responders when it comes to our environment and climate change, especially when it comes to hurricane.

It's some of the coolest things.

They were flying at like one, two in the morning at night and they are really phenomenal, and you can go and look at their patterns on a cool app when you look at planes.

So it's kind of what I do when I don't have anything left to do in my life.

So with that, this concludes our meeting of the Parks Utilities Technology Committee meeting.

Is there any other items of business that come before the committee?

Nope.

Okay.

It is 2.50.

Council President.

Go ahead, Council President.

Oh, no, no worries.

Yes.

Our next committee meeting is April 9th at 2 p.m.

Hearing no further business, it's 2.52 p.m.

This meeting is adjourned.