Tonight, I hope you can make it to an important public meeting regarding plans to clean up contamination at the Kaiser Trentwood Works. The site covers 512 acres along the north bank of the Spokane River over the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer. Why is it so contaminated? Historic aluminum production operations and current uses as an aluminum sheet and plate rolling mill contaminated the site. Kaiser has done some cleanup work but contaminants remain like those nasty polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and metals such as lead, arsenic and chromium.

The meeting will start at 7 p.m. at Trent Elementary School, 3303 N. Pines Road, Spokane Valley. Those who attend will hear descriptions of cleanup alternatives and documents that will guide cleanup at Kaiser. Ecology is asking the public to review cleanup documents and submit comments by close of business March 6.

Becky Kramer had an excellent story in the Spokesman yesterday:

Kaiser Trentwood’s plant along the Spokane River has a long, illustrative history.

Built to produce aluminum for military planes during World War II, the factory later became a steady source of blue-collar jobs for generations of Spokane-area residents.

But the site bears the scars of nearly 70 years of heavy industrial use. The soil and groundwater surrounding the plant are polluted with hydrocarbons, some dating back to the Bunker C fuel oil used at the factory during the 1940s.

 

Couple items not mentioned in the story: In 2002, Kaiser filed for bankruptcy and the bankruptcy court declined to discharge debts related to cleaning up the Spokane River. The following year, Kaiser disclosed it had released more than 100 pounds of PCB's in Spokane River.

For more information, go here from Department Of Ecology.

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