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$100,000 EPA Grant Spurs Seattle Efforts to Reclaim Former Service Stations

Release Date: 7/1/2002
Contact Information: Bill Dunbar
dunbar.bill@epamail.epa.gov
(206) 553-1203

July 1, 2002 The Environmental Protection Agency today announced that the agency will provide $100,000 to King County/Seattle efforts to remove leaking underground petroleum storage tanks from three project sites in the community. The tanks and any associated contamination will be removed from Rainier Court, a proposed affordable housing project in Seattle = s Rainier Valley; Olympic Sculpture Park, a future eight acre sculpture park at the north end of downtown; and at the expanded Museum of Flight near Boeing Field

Rainier Court
Rainier Court is a project of SouthEast Effective Development -- a non-profit community development corporation - and the City of Seattle. SEED is in the process of purchasing and cleaning up an eight-acre site with several contaminated parcels. After this work is complete SEED will develop 342 units of affordable housing and 13 units of market-rate housing in this low-income, ethnically diverse area of Seattle. The now abandoned underground storage tanks at the site were installed in 1977 to support a dump truck operation and maintenance facility.

Olympic Sculpture Park
Olympic Sculpture Park is a project of the Seattle Art Museum, the Museum Development Authority, the City of Seattle, and King County. SAM and MDA are in the process of cleaning up several contaminated properties in the north end of downtown for eventual use as a public sculpture park. The project will add needed open space to the waterfront/downtown area. Recent soil samples indicate the presence of petroleum hydrocarbons which will need to be removed before any park construction work can be done.

The Museum of Flight
Expansion of the Museum of Flight is a project of the Museum of Flight Foundation, the King County Museum of Flight Authority, and King County. The museum currently serves over 100,000 children in its education programs, and its expansion will result in a 40 percent increase in the number of children exposed to the wonders -- and science -- of flight though t he addition of three new classrooms.

A parcel of land critical to the expansion contains at least 10 underground storage tanks and sampling indicates soil near the tanks is contaminated with petroleum products.

The $100,000 grant to King County/Seattle is part of a multi-million dollar EPA program to cleanup contamination at abandoned underground storage tank sites that are hampering communities = efforts to redevelop and improve areas on or around the tanks.