From Industrial Playground to Federal Disaster Zone: How the Duwamish Got Poisoned

The Lower Duwamish Waterway did not become a Superfund site by accident. It became one through a century of industrial use, regulatory failure, and corporate indifference. The consent decree, filed March 4, 2026, lays out the administrative history in cold legal language, but the timeline it describes is a story of slow-motion environmental destruction that the government watched happen for decades.

• The Lower Duwamish Waterway is a five-mile stretch of river running south from Harbor Island in Seattle, Washington. The site encompasses the waterway itself below mean higher high water, all connected slips, inlets, and bays, and extends into Tukwila to the south.
• On September 13, 2001, EPA listed the site on the National Priorities List, the official federal registry of the most contaminated places in the United States. Publication reference: 66 Fed. Reg. 47,583. The site had been identified as a hazardous waste emergency serious enough to require federal Superfund intervention.
• On December 20, 2000, the four primary defendants (The Boeing Company, the City of Seattle, King County, and the Port of Seattle) signed an Administrative Order on Consent for a Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study. This document formally established all four as Potentially Responsible Parties under federal CERCLA law.
• The Remedial Investigation was completed in 2010, ten years after the original agreement. The Feasibility Study was completed in 2012. These documents defined what contamination existed and what options were available to clean it up.
• EPA published its proposed cleanup plan in 2013 in a local newspaper, held a public comment meeting, and finalized the Record of Decision on November 21, 2014. That document selected the specific remedial action that must be implemented and set the cleanup levels that must be achieved.
• Between 2013 and 2021, the original Administrative Order on Consent was amended five separate times to cover pre-remedial design studies, additional pilot studies involving Enhanced Natural Recovery and Activated Carbon treatment, and remedial design for the Upper and Middle reaches of the waterway.
• The Record of Decision was modified by an Explanation of Significant Differences signed on September 30, 2021, nearly seven years after the original decision. This modification was signed by the EPA Administrator herself.
• On July 18, 2024, EPA issued a Unilateral Administrative Order requiring the settling defendants to begin remedial action immediately, before the consent decree was even finalized. This order was necessary because the legal process had taken so long that EPA needed emergency authority to compel action.
• The consent decree itself was filed in U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington, on March 4, 2026, as Civil Action No. 2:26-cv-00738. The case is styled: United States of America and State of Washington v. The Boeing Company, the City of Seattle, King County, et al.

The Polluters: A Cast of Corporations, Cities, and the Federal Government Itself

The consent decree names an unusually wide range of defendants. The “et al.” at the end of the case caption covers a sprawling list of parties organized into four legal categories, each with different obligations. What makes this case remarkable is that the federal government appears on both sides of the ledger: as a plaintiff demanding cleanup, and as a settling federal agency acknowledging its own role in creating the contamination.

The Four Primary “Settling Work Defendants”

• The Boeing Company, one of the largest defense and aerospace contractors in the world, is the lead corporate defendant. Boeing has operated facilities along the Duwamish for decades. Its liability is joint and several with all other Settling Work Defendants, meaning Boeing can be held responsible for the full cost of cleanup even if other parties cannot pay.
• The City of Seattle is named as both a Settling Work Defendant and an Owner Settling Party. As a municipality, Seattle is subject to a special financial assurance test: its cleanup obligation cannot exceed 43 percent of its total annual revenue, and it must document compliance through its Annual Comprehensive Financial Report.
• King County, the county government encompassing Seattle and its surrounding area, bears joint and several liability alongside Boeing and the City. Like Seattle, King County’s payment obligations are capped by budget authority constraints written into the decree: payments exceeding current budget authority require the county to immediately initiate steps to obtain sufficient appropriations.
• The Port of Seattle, the public agency that controls the port facilities and maritime operations along the waterway, is the fourth primary defendant. Port operations are explicitly cited as a factor in the remedy design, with the decree requiring EPA to weigh whether “water-dependent operations warrant a change from capping to dredging” in certain areas.

The “Settling Funding Defendant”: Continental Holdings, Inc.

• Continental Holdings, Inc. is identified separately as the sole “Settling Funding Defendant.” This designation means Continental is not required to perform cleanup work itself but is required to contribute money toward the Settling Work Defendants’ future response costs. Its payment obligations are joint and several with the Settling Work Defendants.
• The source document does not disclose the specific dollar amount Continental Holdings must pay; that figure is contained in the sealed Appendix D. The decree does confirm that Continental’s payments go into an account controlled by the Settling Work Defendants.

The “Settling Cash-Out Defendants”

• A separate category of defendants called “Settling Cash-Out Defendants” are required to make one-time cash payments into the Settling Work Defendants’ account within 30 days of the decree’s effective date, or on a schedule specified in Appendix D. After paying, they have no further obligations under the decree.
• The identities and payment amounts for the Settling Cash-Out Defendants are listed in Appendix D, which is not reproduced in the source document provided. Their existence confirms that many smaller or defunct companies that contributed to the contamination were resolved through cash buyouts rather than cleanup participation.

The Settling Federal Agencies: The Government Polluted Its Own River

• The consent decree names the following federal agencies as “Settling Federal Agencies” with their own acknowledged role in the contamination: the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration, the Department of Health Education and Welfare, the Department of the Interior, the National Youth Administration, the Public Housing Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Veterans Administration, and the War Assets Administration.
• Additional federal agencies named include the United States Coast Guard, the Civil Aeronautics Administration, the Works Progress Administration, the Emergency Fleet Corporation, the United States Shipping Board, the Maritime Commission, the Defense Plant Corporation, the Civilian Production Administration, the War Production Board, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
• Many of these agencies no longer exist. The Works Progress Administration, the War Production Board, and the Emergency Fleet Corporation were wartime and Depression-era federal entities. Their presence on this list documents that industrial contamination of the Duwamish dates back to at least the Second World War and the New Deal era.
• The federal government, on behalf of all these agencies, is required to pay $140,000,000 to the Settling Work Defendants as contribution for both past and future cleanup costs. This payment is subject to appropriated funds being available. If the payment is not made within 120 days of the decree’s effective date, interest begins accruing.

What Cannot Be Billed: The Human and Cultural Cost of a Poisoned River

There is a number in this consent decree: $667,842,290. That is what it costs to clean up the Lower Duwamish Waterway. But there is no line in this document for what it cost the people who live alongside it, fish from it, and whose ancestors have called it home for thousands of years.

The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe and the Suquamish Tribe of the Port Madison Reservation appear in this decree only in a procedural clause. EPA was required by law to notify them that negotiations were happening. They were “encouraged” to participate. Their rivers, their fish, the food systems that sustained their communities for generations, appear in the legal language as “natural resources under federal trusteeship.” That is what the law calls them. What the law does not call them is sacred. It does not call them irreplaceable. It does not call them the material basis of a way of life that industrialists and wartime production boards spent a century dismantling.

The Duwamish River is not just a commercial waterway. It is a place where Indigenous people fished long before there was a Seattle. The contamination documented in this case did not happen overnight. It accumulated across generations of industrial use, military production, sewage overflow, and corporate discharge. And while it was accumulating, people were eating the fish. People who could not afford to shop at the Pike Place Market. People who relied on the river because that is what their families had always done, because that is what their culture told them to do, because that was how you fed your family when you did not have money.

The consent decree acknowledges this. Section 12 of the Record of Decision, incorporated by reference into the decree, identifies “Seafood Consumption Institutional Controls” as a required remedy. The decree defines those controls as: “fish advisories, education, and culturally appropriate and effective outreach programs.” Read that slowly. The cleanup plan for the people who were poisoned is to tell them they were poisoned. The remedy for generations of contaminated seafood consumption is a pamphlet. An outreach program. A poster at the boat launch that says “eat less fish.”

None of the settling defendants admit liability. Not Boeing. Not the City of Seattle. Not King County. Not the Port. Not one of the twenty-plus federal agencies named in the decree. The legal language is explicit: “Settling Defendants do not admit any liability.” They do not acknowledge that the release of hazardous substances constitutes “an imminent and substantial endangerment to the public health or welfare or the environment.” This is the ritual of Superfund settlements. Corporations and governments agree to pay for cleanup, and in exchange they are protected from admitting they did anything wrong.

Meanwhile, EPA waived $6.2 million in its own costs because too many of the companies responsible have gone bankrupt or dissolved. They profited. They polluted. They liquidated. And the tab landed with the taxpayer, with the tribes, and with every family who ate Duwamish fish and did not know what they were eating.

The Duwamish is a working river. It still has boats on it. It still has businesses operating along its banks. The decree is careful to protect those businesses. There are clauses about minimizing interference with “existing and reasonably anticipated uses.” There are provisions for changing the cleanup method from capping to dredging if shipping operations require it. The river’s commercial value is protected. The people downstream are protected by a pamphlet.

Twenty-six years from the first consent order to a binding cleanup decree. A generation. Children who were born when Boeing first signed its agreement to study the problem are now adults with their own children. If those children have eaten Duwamish fish, they ate it under fish advisories that exist because the cleanup was never completed. They ate it in a city whose own government was one of the four companies named as responsible parties. They ate it next to one of the richest aerospace companies in the history of the world, a company with a net worth that dwarfs the entire cleanup budget many times over.

The decree calls this outcome “fair, reasonable, in the public interest, and consistent with CERCLA.” The court will agree. That is how these things end. Not with accountability. With a decree.

Verbatim: What They Actually Signed and What It Means

These are direct quotes from the consent decree filed March 4, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Civil Action No. 2:26-cv-00738. Every word below came directly from the source document.

“Settling Defendants that have entered into this Decree do not admit any liability to Plaintiffs arising out of the transactions or occurrences alleged in the Complaint, nor do they acknowledge that the release or threatened release of hazardous substance(s) at or from the Site constitutes an imminent and substantial endangerment to the public health or welfare or the environment.”

Source: Consent Decree, Whereas Clause, Page 4

• This is a standard CERCLA settlement clause, but its implications are not standard for the people affected. Boeing, the City of Seattle, King County, and the Port of Seattle are committing $667 million to cleanup while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge they created a public health danger. This clause exists specifically to protect defendants from future civil litigation by injured parties.
• The phrase “imminent and substantial endangerment” is a legal term of art from CERCLA. Refusing to acknowledge it creates a shield: if any individual or tribe later sues for personal injury damages, the defendants can point to this clause as evidence they never admitted the contamination was dangerous.

“Seafood Consumption Institutional Controls means the response actions required to reduce human health risks from exposure to COCs in resident fish and shellfish by providing information about how much and what types of fish and shellfish are safe to consume, in the form of fish advisories, education, and culturally appropriate and effective outreach programs.”

“Based on the non-participation of numerous defunct and/or non-viable potentially responsible parties, EPA has agreed to waive its unreimbursed Past Response Costs, which total approximately $6.2 million, and 50% of certain Future Response Cost bills up to a total of $16.9 million.”

Source: Consent Decree, Whereas Clause, Page 7

• This clause confirms that a significant number of companies identified as responsible for the contamination will never pay anything. They dissolved, went bankrupt, or became legally unreachable, and the government wrote off their share of the bill.
• The $6.2 million in waived past costs and up to $16.9 million in future cost forgiveness represent money that taxpayers effectively absorb. These are costs incurred by EPA to respond to pollution that corporations created and then walked away from.

“As soon as reasonably practicable after the Effective Date, the United States, on behalf of Settling Federal Agencies, shall pay to Settling Work Defendants $140,000,000.00 for Settling Work Defendants’ Past Response Costs and Settling Work Defendants’ Future Response Costs.”

Source: Consent Decree, Paragraph 38(a), Page 43

• The federal government, which is simultaneously the plaintiff suing Boeing and other defendants to clean up the river, is also required to pay those same defendants $140 million. This is because the Settling Federal Agencies (the Department of Defense, the War Production Board, the Maritime Commission, and others) are themselves responsible for a portion of the contamination.
• This $140 million comes from appropriated funds, meaning Congress must authorize the payment. The decree explicitly states that this payment “can only be paid from appropriated funds legally available for such purpose,” which means it is not guaranteed and depends on future congressional budgets.

“To ensure completion of the Work required under Section V, Settling Work Defendants shall secure financial assurance, initially in the amount of $667,842,290 (‘Estimated Cost of the Work’) for the benefit of EPA.”

Source: Consent Decree, Paragraph 22, Page 26-27

• This $667,842,290 figure is the official EPA estimate of what it will cost to physically clean up the Lower Duwamish Waterway. It must be secured through bonds, letters of credit, trust funds, or insurance policies before cleanup begins.
• The fact that Boeing must secure this amount as financial assurance means EPA does not trust that Boeing and the other defendants will complete the work without having real money on the line. The financial assurance mechanism exists precisely because corporate defendants have historically abandoned Superfund cleanups when they became expensive.

“In accordance with section 122(j)(1) of CERCLA, EPA notified the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Washington State Department of Ecology, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, and the Suquamish Indian Tribe of the Port Madison Reservation on May 20, 2021, of negotiations with PRPs regarding the release of hazardous substances that may have resulted in injury to the natural resources under federal trusteeship and encouraged the trustee(s) to participate in the negotiation of this Decree.”

Source: Consent Decree, Whereas Clause, Page 3-4

• The tribes were notified in May 2021, four years before the decree was filed. They were “encouraged” to participate. The consent decree does not state whether they did participate or what the outcome was. Their interests, which include subsistence fishing rights guaranteed by treaty, are reduced to a procedural notification requirement.
• The phrase “natural resources under federal trusteeship” covers fisheries, wildlife, and ecosystems that have sustained the Muckleshoot and Suquamish peoples for generations. The fact that these resources appear in the decree only in relation to a legal notification requirement reflects how environmental law treats Indigenous cultural and subsistence interests.

“On July 18, 2024, EPA issued a Unilateral Administrative Order (‘UAO’) to the Settling Work Defendants to implement remedial action at the Site before entry of the Consent Decree. As specified in the UAO, it will terminate upon the Effective Date of this Consent Decree.”

Source: Consent Decree, Whereas Clause, Page 6

• EPA was forced to issue an emergency order in July 2024 because the legal negotiations had been ongoing for years and no binding cleanup obligation yet existed. This means that from the 2014 Record of Decision to the 2024 UAO, a full decade passed during which Boeing and the other defendants had no binding legal obligation to begin physical cleanup.
• The UAO is a coercive tool that EPA uses when it believes defendants may not act without immediate compulsion. Its issuance here signals that EPA had serious concerns about whether the work would proceed voluntarily.

Who Paid the Real Price: Public Health and Economic Inequality on the Duwamish

Public Health

The contamination of the Lower Duwamish Waterway is a public health event documented in federal records. The cleanup remedy itself is evidence of the harm: the EPA selected specific remedial action levels, identified specific Contaminants of Concern (COCs) in Section 13.2 of the Record of Decision, and created an entire “Seafood Consumption Institutional Controls Program” specifically because eating fish from this river poses documented risks to human health.

• The EPA and Washington State Department of Public Health identified fish and shellfish in the Lower Duwamish Waterway as containing Contaminants of Concern at levels requiring official fish advisories. These advisories do not prohibit consumption; they attempt to limit it, which means people who do not read English, do not access government websites, or simply need to eat are receiving inadequate protection.
• The “Seafood Consumption Institutional Controls Program” is operated by Public Health Seattle and King County through a cooperative agreement funded by EPA. The program includes periodic surveys to update “seafood catch and/or consumption information,” meaning the government knows people are still catching and eating fish from the contaminated waterway and has chosen education as its primary harm-reduction tool.
• The 2019 Institutional Control Implementation and Assurances Plan for Seafood Consumption was developed by Public Health Seattle and King County and approved by EPA. This plan governs how the public is told about contamination risks, but the contamination itself was known since at least the 2014 Record of Decision. People ate fish for at least five years under this advisory system before any binding cleanup obligation existed.
• The Remedial Action Levels described in Table 28 of the Record of Decision represent the minimum cleanup standards the site must reach before the contamination is considered addressed. The decree acknowledges that even after cleanup, EPA retains the right to require further response actions if “reopener conditions” are met, meaning the agency itself does not guarantee that completing the remedial action will make the river safe.
• Workers performing the cleanup itself face exposure risks. The decree requires commercial general liability insurance of $1 million per occurrence and umbrella coverage of $5 million, and mandates compliance with all applicable worker’s compensation laws. The existence of these requirements reflects the reality that physical remediation of Superfund sediments is hazardous work.

“The remedy for a poisoned river, formalized in a federal court consent decree, is a fish advisory pamphlet. The contamination took a century to build. The cleanup will take years to implement. The information program telling people not to eat the fish has been running since 2019.”

Environmental Degradation

The Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund Site represents documented environmental contamination severe enough to require one of the most expensive sediment cleanups in the Pacific Northwest. The decree identifies specific ecological consequences that extend beyond human health to the river ecosystem itself.

• The contamination is concentrated in river sediments, specifically in the portion of the waterway below mean higher high water, extending five miles south from Harbor Island. Sediment contamination of this type affects every organism that lives in, feeds from, or migrates through the affected area, from benthic invertebrates at the bottom of the food chain to the birds and marine mammals at the top.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service were formally notified of negotiations because the contamination “may have resulted in injury to the natural resources under federal trusteeship.” Both agencies serve as natural resource trustees, meaning the federal government formally recognizes that the contamination injured ecosystems it has a legal obligation to protect.
• The remediation plan involves a combination of dredging and capping. Capping involves placing a barrier layer over contaminated sediment rather than removing it. Activated Carbon treatment and Enhanced Natural Recovery were studied as pilot interventions. This means portions of the river will have contaminated sediment permanently beneath engineered caps, not removed, for the indefinite future.
• The decree establishes a permanent institutional control system for capped areas. Property owners above capped sediments must record Use Restriction Agreements prohibiting anchoring, spudding, and vessel operations that could disturb the caps. The river bottom will require active management and monitoring for decades, and EPA retains authority to require further action if the caps fail or if monitoring reveals ongoing contamination.
• The downstream Harbor Island Superfund Site, which includes the West Waterway Sediments and East Waterway Sediments, is identified as a separate NPL-listed site adjacent to and downstream of the Lower Duwamish Waterway. The existence of a second Superfund site immediately downstream demonstrates that the contamination extends beyond the five-mile stretch covered by this decree.
• The Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife was notified as a natural resource trustee. Washington State treaty fishing rights for the Muckleshoot and Suquamish tribes are exercised in waters that include the Duwamish watershed. Contamination of the fishery constitutes an interference with treaty-protected rights that predate statehood.

Economic Inequality

The geography of the Duwamish contamination is not random. It follows a pattern that repeats across every major American industrial city: the communities closest to the pollution are the ones with the fewest resources to fight it, relocate from it, or access alternatives to the contaminated resource.

• The Lower Duwamish Waterway runs through the Duwamish Valley, home to Georgetown and South Park, two of Seattle’s historically lowest-income neighborhoods with some of the highest concentrations of communities of color in the city. These are the neighborhoods that live closest to the contamination, breathe the air from the industrial corridor, and historically fished the river for subsistence.
• The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe and the Suquamish Tribe bear a disproportionate burden from the contamination. Both tribes hold treaty-protected fishing rights in the affected waters. Unlike recreational fishers who fish for sport and can easily substitute an alternative activity, subsistence and cultural fishing is a practice with deep community and spiritual significance that cannot be replaced with a fish advisory pamphlet.
• The “Settling Cash-Out Defendants,” whose identities and payment amounts are in the sealed Appendix D, represent companies that contributed to the contamination and are walking away after a one-time cash payment. Their financial exit means that the work of actual cleanup falls to the remaining four major defendants, and any future cost overruns above the financial assurance amount become a dispute between those defendants and EPA, not a source of additional corporate accountability.
• EPA agreed to waive $6.2 million in its own past costs and will forgive up to $16.9 million in future costs specifically because the polluters who should pay have dissolved or gone bankrupt. This cost is borne by taxpayers generally, not by the communities harmed. The communities harmed are not compensated at all under this decree; the money flows to cleanup contractors and government oversight, not to affected residents.
• The financial assurance structure protects the cleanup from corporate insolvency but does not protect individuals. If Boeing or King County or the City of Seattle were to default on their cleanup obligations, EPA could take over the work using the financial assurance funds. There is no parallel mechanism ensuring that people harmed by the contamination are compensated for medical costs, lost food sources, or generational harm.
• The joint and several liability structure means each major defendant can theoretically be held responsible for the full cleanup cost. In practice, the decree distributes costs through the negotiated payment structure in Appendix D. The City of Seattle and King County have explicit budget authority protections written into the decree, meaning local governments can delay payments that exceed their annual appropriations, potentially slowing cleanup if other defendants cannot cover the gap.

The Numbers That Tell the Story in One Frame

The Cleanup Plan: What “Remedial Action” Actually Means in Practice

The consent decree does not just establish liability. It creates a specific, enforceable program of work. Understanding what the defendants are actually required to do reveals both the scale of the cleanup and its significant limitations.

The Physical Work

• Settling Work Defendants must “finance, develop, implement, operate, maintain, and monitor the effectiveness of the Remedial Action” across the full five miles of the Lower Duwamish Waterway, from Harbor Island south to Tukwila. This includes the main channel, all connected slips, inlets, and bays.
• The remedy uses a combination of approaches. The remedial design involves “capping” contaminated sediment in some areas (covering it with engineered material rather than removing it) and dredging in others. The choice between capping and dredging in specific areas can be modified based on shipping and navigation needs, meaning commercial interests have formal input into the cleanup method.
• An Enhanced Natural Recovery and Activated Carbon pilot study was completed under the 2014 amendment to the original consent order. Activated Carbon treatment involves adding carbon material to sediment to reduce the bioavailability of contaminants to organisms. The pilot results inform the final remedial design but do not replace dredging or capping as primary methods.
• The work is divided into “reaches.” Remedial design for the Upper Reach was initiated under the Fourth Amendment to the original order (effective July 9, 2018). Remedial design for the Middle Reach was initiated under the Fifth Amendment (effective July 8, 2021). The Lower Reach design is covered under this consent decree. Each reach has its own design schedule and data evaluation requirements.
• After physical cleanup is complete, defendants must implement long-term monitoring and maintenance. Capped areas require permanent institutional controls restricting anchoring, vessel operations, and any activity that could disturb the cap material. These restrictions must be recorded in land records as Use Restriction Agreements enforceable against future property owners.

The Fish Advisory Program

• The Seafood Consumption Institutional Controls Program is a mandatory element of the remedy, operated by Public Health Seattle and King County under a cooperative agreement funded by EPA. The program must be maintained for the duration of the cleanup and into the monitoring period.
• The program must include periodic surveys to update seafood catch and consumption information. This means the government is actively tracking how many people are still eating fish from the contaminated waterway and using that data to update its advisory materials.
• The decree requires that outreach be “culturally appropriate and effective,” an acknowledgment that a standard English-language pamphlet is insufficient for the communities most affected by the contamination, particularly the Muckleshoot and Suquamish tribal members and the significant immigrant and refugee populations in the Duwamish Valley.
• Settling Work Defendants must pay 100% of EPA’s costs for implementing this program, with no cap and no forgiveness provisions. The fish advisory program is the one element of EPA’s oversight costs that is not subject to the $16.9 million forgiveness structure.

Institutional Controls for Capped Areas

• Every property owner above a capped area must record a formal Use Restriction Agreement with the county land records office. These agreements run with the land, meaning they bind future buyers, lessees, and transferees indefinitely.
• Before entering a contract to transfer any property that is part of the site, owner-defendants must provide the prospective buyer with a full copy of the consent decree, notify them of all use restrictions, and incorporate those restrictions into the transfer documents. This creates a permanent disclosure obligation that follows every piece of affected real estate.
• Owner-defendants who want to conduct any activity at their property that could disturb a capped area must first submit a proposal to EPA describing how contamination releases will be controlled during the activity and how the cap will be restored afterward. EPA must approve the activity before it proceeds.

Who to Hold Accountable and How to Push Back

The consent decree is a legal settlement, not the end of the story. These entities and bodies remain accountable to public pressure, legal challenges, and organized community action.

The Named Corporate and Government Leaders

• The Boeing Company. The decree names Boeing as the lead Settling Work Defendant. Boeing’s corporate officers and directors are bound by this decree; failure by any officer or director to comply cannot be raised as a defense. Boeing’s Chief Financial Officer is required to submit annual financial assurance certifications to EPA confirming the $667.8 million cleanup fund remains secure.
• The City of Seattle. Seattle’s Director of Finance is required to submit annual financial certifications to EPA demonstrating the city meets its financial assurance obligations. The city’s Mayor and City Council hold budget authority over cleanup payments. Payments that exceed the city’s current budget authority require council action.
• King County. King County’s equivalent financial officer bears the same certification obligations as Seattle’s. The King County Executive and County Council control the budget authority that governs how quickly cleanup payments can be made.
• The Port of Seattle. The Port Commission controls the Port’s obligations under this decree. The Port’s role in restricting certain vessel operations over capped sediment areas gives it direct operational responsibility for long-term site maintenance.
• Continental Holdings, Inc. is the Settling Funding Defendant whose payment amounts are sealed in Appendix D. Public pressure and investigative journalism can pursue the disclosure of those amounts.

Watchlist: Agencies With Ongoing Oversight Responsibility

• EPA Region 10 (Seattle): The primary federal overseer of this consent decree. EPA must approve all remedial design deliverables, can issue Work Takeover notices if defendants fail to perform, and retains authority to require further cleanup if performance standards are not met. EPA’s Region 10 office is the primary point of contact for public comment and oversight complaints.
• Washington State Department of Ecology: A co-plaintiff in this case and a co-enforcer of the decree under the Washington State Model Toxics Control Act. Ecology has independent authority to bill defendants for its oversight costs and to take enforcement action under state law. Ecology’s cleanup program is funded in part by the Model Toxics Control Capital Account, which receives payment from the settling defendants under this decree.
• U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division: The DOJ is listed as both the filing attorney and a party to this decree. DOJ must be notified of all payments, disputes, and alleged violations. The DOJ’s address for this case is 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115.
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): A natural resource trustee for the Duwamish. NOAA was notified of PRP negotiations and has authority to pursue separate natural resource damage claims beyond what this consent decree covers.
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: A co-trustee alongside NOAA for federal natural resources. FWS has authority over wildlife habitat and fishery resources injured by the contamination.
• Public Health Seattle and King County: The agency currently running the Seafood Consumption Institutional Controls Program under EPA cooperative agreement. This agency publishes the fish advisories and tracks consumption data. Its reports are public records.

What You Can Actually Do

• Contact EPA Region 10 directly. The administrative record for this case is public. Request the full administrative record, including all comments from the 2013 public meeting, all five amendments to the original consent order, and all remedial design deliverables as they are submitted. Every document Boeing, the City, King County, and the Port submit to EPA under this decree is subject to public review.
• Support the Duwamish Valley communities directly. Organizations based in Georgetown and South Park that work on environmental justice and river health operate on the front lines of this issue. Duwamish River Community Coalition and similar groups do the grassroots work that legal settlements ignore. Look them up, give them money, show up to their events.
• Support the Muckleshoot and Suquamish tribes. Both tribes have treaty-protected interests in the Duwamish fishery that this consent decree barely acknowledges. Both tribes have their own governments, legal departments, and advocacy organizations. Follow their public statements on this case, amplify their voices, and recognize that the Duwamish River has a name because the Duwamish people named it.
• Demand Natural Resource Damage Assessments. This consent decree does not resolve natural resource damage claims by NOAA or FWS. Those agencies have independent authority to pursue additional compensation from the defendants for injury to the fishery, wildlife, and habitat. Organize pressure campaigns demanding those assessments be completed and that the results be made public.
• Watch the financial assurance filings. Every year, Boeing and the other Settling Work Defendants must submit financial certifications to EPA confirming that $667.8 million in cleanup funds remain secured. If a defendant’s financial condition deteriorates, those filings will show it. Follow financial news about Boeing in particular. If Boeing’s credit rating drops below investment grade, its financial assurance mechanism may need to be restructured, and that moment creates leverage for public pressure.
• Attend EPA community involvement activities. The decree requires EPA to fund community involvement activities, including the possibility of technical assistance grants under Section 117(e) of CERCLA. Technical assistance grants allow community groups to hire independent technical experts to review cleanup plans. Apply for them. Use them.