From the 1930’s through the 1970’s, the Sunshine Laundry and Dry Cleaning Company at Woodlawn and Fourth Ave Northeast did a wonderful job of washing clothes, and a horrible job of disposing of its chemicals. Left in the soil and groundwater (and air) are tetrachloroethene (PCE), trichloroethene, cis-1,2-dichloroethene, trans-1,2-dichloroethene and vinyl chloride. I have no clear idea what these are, but they sound nasty, and the Department of Ecology seems to agree, as they are undertaking a clean-up as part of a consent decree with Lutheran Retirement Home of Greater Seattle (Hearthstone).
The clean-up plan includes:
- Removing two solvent underground storage tanks
- Installing an electrical resistance heating system to remove the solvent contamination in the soil, to an approximately depth of 16 feet below ground surface
- Soil excavation to a depth of 16 feet below ground surface
- Groundwater treatment system (enhanced reductive dechlorination) for the solvent contamination in the groundwater
- Long term groundwater monitoring
If you’d like to keep an eye on what’s going on, or have a say in it, there’s a public comment period on the draft consent decree and clean-up plan April 1st – May 2.
I had thought it was the original plastics company that had left the 55 gallon drums behind those buildings and necessitated the years long clean out of the lot under the former Yasuko/Cameo Ballet/Alpha Martial Arts/forgetting the name of the fine coffee shop and the many other businesses that used that space. The teriyaki, the coffee, the hours spent in classes there; all the passive toxic exposures in our lives make the mind reel.