Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition: Finding Justice in a Toxic Valley

Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition: Finding Justice in a Toxic Valley

By: Liz Zimmerman

 

 

BJ Cummings grew up with a deep connection to the Puget Sound. As a young child she regularly took trips from her home in New York to the PNW as a young child. Through years of studying environmental issues outside of her bubble, she decided to call the Puget Sound home and work with the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance. Building on her work as a “Puget Soundkeeper”, Cummings became passionate about the clean up of the Duwamish River. In 2001, she founded the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition (DRCC). Over the course of Cummings’ 25 year fight for environmental change, she has broadened her goals, with a focus on the environmental racism that drives symptoms like a poisoned Duwamish River.

  

 

Before European settlement, the Duwamish River Valley had been home to the Duwamish peoples since 600CE. The people largely lived in permanent settlements on Elliott Bay, as well as the lower Duwamish River. The abundance of fish in the lower Duwamish River during all seasons allowed the tribe to be one of the only groups of hunter-gatherers in the world that lived in one area throughout the years. The Duwamish often traveled by canoe to trade and intermarry with nearby tribes; however, this lifestyle drastically changed when Europeans entered the Puget Sound area in the 1800s, largely in pursuit of fur. After this move, indigenous populations were largely displaced from their native lands and were unable to remain connected to their native land. In the Duwamish Valley, many native settlements were intentionally burned and the vibrant community dwindled drastically by the late 20th century. By the mid 1900s, the area had been completely industrialized, wherein multiple factories were built on the riverbed. These factories dumped the PCBs that now plague the Duwamish, leading the community to take action.

 

These contaminants and their disastrous impact led Cummings to create the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, with one main goal in mind: to secure funding for clean up of the Duwamish River under the Superfund program. The last 5.5 miles of the Duwamish River have been greatly affected by industrial contaminants, such as PCBs, PAHs, and phthalates, impacting fish populations and endangering nearby communities. After a significant amount of campaigning by the DRCC, local environmental groups, and Duwamish advocates, the US EPA added the river to the Superfund program. This program was created in 1980, with the goal of securing funding to clean up America’s most environmentally damaged areas. In addition to its status as a Superfund site, the Duwamish community is one that was already disadvantaged. The community of the Duwamish Valley is one of the most diverse in the Seattle area, in addition to being comparatively low-income, and being traditional native land. The Superfund process is often slow and complicated, requiring states to submit clean up plans to the Environmental Protection Agency, secure funding from either groups that caused the environmental damage or from taxpayers, then finally enacting the clean-up. Superfund construction has been projected to begin in 2020 by the Washington EPA, in line with a clean-up plan that the DRCC has worked on each step of the way,  including stopping pathways that allow PCBs into the river and removing toxic sediment. A clean river, made possible by a Superfund clean-up plan, is a first step in order to bring about environmental equity to the people of the Duwamish Valley. 

 

‘All Hands in to Repair Seattle’s Polluted Duwamish River’ (nrdc.org)

While an equitable Superfund plan was the group’s main priority, the DRCC also has initiatives to address other environmental factors, like clean air in the community. Due to air pollution and exposure to chemicals via the Duwamish River, the life expectancy in the Duwamish Valley is 8-13 years shorter than other areas in Seattle. The DWCC has attempted to remedy the air quality aspect through their Clean Air Program, where the group researches mitigation efforts of asthma and air quality issues, along with collaboration with groups working on air quality issues in the region. 

 

Many of the group’s past initiatives have been successful in improving environmental quality for local residents. For years, the DRCC worked on its Healthy River/Healthy Community project — an action plan which aided the EPA’s clean-up plan of the Duwamish River, along with assisting community development outside of EPA efforts, and receiving funding for those plans.  In that initiative, the DRCC made major strides towards cleaning and opening up river access, and securing funding to employ residents for those clean-up efforts. Along with those projects and action plans, the DRCC has introduced many other initiatives, with wide ranging goals such as: working with environmental justice collaborations, neighborhood beautification projects, providing fresh produce to certain communities, and advocating for tribal access to the river. As for BJ Cummings, she has stepped down from her leadership role, moving to employment at the University of Washington, advancing research in environmental health in the Pacific Northwest. Although she has left her role as director at DRCC, she continues to aid as a principal and founder.

 

Right now, the DRCC has a number of initiatives focused on environmental justice.. For example, their  Community Stewardship allows interested people to learn how to be spokespeople for their community, while also  cleaning and watching over specific areas of the Duwamish Valley. A youth program invites children to learn about environmental justice actions, and to develop baseline job skills. The DRCC has also teamed up with a local elementary school to integrate environmental justice issues into its curriculum. 

 

The Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition is an organization that focuses on marginalized people who have been hurt by industrial pollution. The group takes action to find justice for their community that has been harmed by carelessness in chemical waste, via governmental aid and grassroots organization, leading the fight towards equal environmental outcomes for all. For more information or to get involved, visit the organization’s website at duwamishcleanup.org, or BJ Cumming’s book on the importance and history of the Duwamish river “The River That Made Seattle: A Human and Natural History of the Duwamish”.