SEATTLE (Legal Newsline) - The Port of Seattle has sued Boeing in federal court, seeking compensation for what it has spent on contamination in the Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund Site in King County.
It filed suit July 19 under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, as well as the state's Model Toxics Control Act. It says Boeing has operated for more than 100 years at 10 major facilities along the LDW, with an additional 23 facilities in the vicinity.
The suit centers on polychlorinated biphenyl that have allegedly contaminated the LDW, especially at Boeing Plant 2.
"For decades, Boeing pumped PCBs from numerous transformer vaults (holding leaking transformers) at its Plant 2 facility directly to the LDW, with concentrations (as late as the 1990s) of up to 1 billion parts per billion - i.e. 100% PCB - detected in vault sludge, 460 million ppb (46% PCB) in the piping leading from the vault to the LDW, and 890,000 ppb in sediments near the base of the associated outfall," the suit says.
"To put those concentrations in context, the sediment PCB cleanup level in the United States Environmental Protection Agency's cleanup plan for the LDW is just 2 ppb."
The port says it has spent approximately $23 million in response to PCB contamination. It is represented by the law firm Stoel Rives.