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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Cleanup resumes near Asarco site

Associated Press

EVERETT – Workers resumed cleaning up polluted soil in residential yards near an old Tacoma-area Asarco smelter site on Thursday, and were expected to resume similar work in about a week in Everett, with a mix of company, local, state and federally authorized funds, officials said.

“They’ve been at my house all day today,” said the Rev. David Alger, who lives near the Point Defiance Elementary School.

Much of the work to remove tainted soil from private property was halted Aug. 10 when Asarco LLC, a subsidiary of Grupo Mexico SA, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Officials said a bankruptcy judge in Texas this week approved an Asarco request to allow the withdrawal of money from the company’s national environmental trust fund to resume cleanup on about a dozen residential properties near the site of the old copper smelter near Tacoma.

The Environmental Protection Agency also authorized the fund’s trustee to disburse $150,000 and pay MRC Construction of Ruston for completing the soil removal, EPA project manager Kevin Rochlin said.

MRC owner Michael Urquhart said he hoped to complete the work within 30 days.

In Everett, Larry Crawford, an aide to Mayor Ray Stephanson, said Wednesday the state Ecology Department pledged $450,000 to help complete cleanup in the north end of town after the city and the Everett Housing Authority each agreed to provide $225,000 for a total of $900,000.

“It’s our intention to get the work back up and going within the next week so that it can be cleaned up before the rains come this year,” said Bud Alkire, housing authority executive director.

Stephanson called the Ecology Department a week ago to negotiate the matching grant. The state agreed to the deal the same day.

“It’s a good investment, and it cleans up a toxic area,” the mayor said.

The housing authority purchased the 7-acre Everett site and 15 nearby homes for $3.4 million last year on condition that Asarco pay to remove arsenic-laden soil around the site of a copper smelter that operated in the late 19th and early 20th century. The worst of the pollution already had been removed under court order.

Barclay’s North Inc. of Lake Stevens bought the land from the housing authority this month for $3.2 million and plans to begin building houses on the property soon after the cleanup is finished.