Source: Yakima Herald-Republic (WA), December 11, 2014
Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com
The Yakama Nation is suing a federal agency to recover money it says it spent helping oversee the cleanup of a contaminated Columbia River island.
The case against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers focuses on the cleanup of a landfill on Bradford Island, a historical tribal fishing site where waste from the Bonneville Dam was dumped for decades. Some electrical equipment ended up in the Columbia River, leaking toxins including lead, mercury, PCBs and petroleum chemicals.
The Corps conducted cleanup work in 2002 and 2007, but the toxic effects linger in the area. Oregon and Washington have issued strict warnings not to eat nonmigratory fish caught in the area, such as bass and sturgeon.
The Corps continues to monitor the area to ensure the cleanup was sufficient, said Diana Fredlund, a spokeswoman for the agency in Portland.
Fredlund said the Corps’ legal counsel had not yet seen the tribe’s lawsuit, and therefore could not comment on it.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Oregon, claims that Yakama Nation Fisheries staff and Tribal Council officials participated in planning the cleanup projects but were not reimbursed for their efforts, estimated at about $93,000. Failure to fund the tribe limited its ability to properly respond to the hazardous waste problem, the tribe’s attorneys wrote.
Rose Longoria, the superfund coordinator for the Yakama Nation Fisheries, said although the lawsuit focuses on the financial issues, the case is really about seeking to be treated as a partner by the Corps.
“Fundamentally, what we are looking for is meaningful participation and the opportunity to sit at the table for these decisions,” Longoria said. “We’ve been trying to work out our relationship since 2005 and it’s very unfortunate we’ve had to take this route.”
She said that it’s apparent from recent studies of the level of PCBs in fish that live around Bonneville Dam that the cleanup efforts have not done enough. Among other effects, PCBs can damage brain development in young children. The industrial chemical was often used as a coolant in electrical equipment, but has been banned for years.
“The contamination levels in fish tissue are screaming high, the highest in the region, so definitely there needs to be more active remedy … so we can ensure clean healthy fish for tribal members,” Longoria said. “The Yakamas want to make sure we fully understand where everything is coming from and where it’s going.”
Migratory fish such as salmon and steelhead that swim through the area are still considered safe to eat because they are not as affected by the contamination as the fish that live their whole lives in the area.
“The Yakama Nation has a key role in cleanup and had numerous meetings with the Corps, but they still fail to meaningfully include the Yakama Nation in Bradford Island cleanup efforts,” Tribal Council member Gerald Lewis said in a news release. “Tribal participation is a requirement for cleanup in areas with historic tribal use.”