EPA is performing additional soil cleanup work at 15 properties within Northport during summer/fall 2022. This includes 14 residential properties and a common use area at the corner of 3rd Street & Columbia. This cleanup work is being done to address threats to people’s health from potential exposure to lead in their soil. This 2022 soil cleanup work builds on previous cleanup work conducted in and around Northport in 2004, 2015, 2018 and 2020.
Contaminated topsoil will be removed – typically down to a depth of 6 or 12 inches – and clean soils will be installed to re-establish the original grades. EPA Region 10 is using an interim action level of 700 parts per million (ppm) of lead in the soil to guide the selection of properties for this year’s cleanup.
The soil cleanup work began during the week of August 15 and is expected to last 8 to 10 weeks. Click here for the EPA’s fact sheet describing this project.
Based on new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and EPA’s published Removal Management Level User’s Guide, EPA Region 10 has also adopted a lower lead removal action level in soil from 700 ppm (parts per million) to 400 ppm. Additional cleanup work may be performed in the future within Northport and Upper Columbia Valley to address properties with lower levels of lead contamination that exceed the new action cleanup level.
