The Yakama Nation is suing a federal agency to recover money it says it spent helping oversee the cleanup of a contaminated Columbia River island.
The case against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers focuses on the cleanup of a landfill on Bradford Island, a historical tribal fishing site where waste from the Bonneville Dam was dumped for decades. Some electrical equipment ended up in the Columbia River, leaking toxins including lead, mercury, PCBs and petroleum chemicals.
The Corps conducted cleanup work in 2002 and 2007, but the toxic effects linger in the area. Oregon and Washington have issued strict warnings not to eat nonmigratory fish caught in the area, such as bass and sturgeon.
The Corps continues to monitor the area to ensure the cleanup was sufficient, said Diana Fredlund, a spokeswoman for the agency in Portland.
Fredlund said the Corps’ legal counsel had not yet seen the tribe’s lawsuit, and therefore could not comment on it.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Oregon, claims that Yakama Nation Fisheries staff and Tribal Council officials participated in planning the cleanup projects but were not reimbursed for their efforts, estimated at about $93,000. Failure to fund the tribe limited its ability to properly respond to the hazardous waste problem, the tribe’s attorneys wrote.
Rose Longoria, the superfund coordinator for the Yakama Nation Fisheries, said although the lawsuit focuses on the financial issues, the case is really about seeking to be treated as a partner by the Corps.
“Fundamentally, what we are looking for is meaningful participation and the opportunity to sit at the table for these decisions,” Longoria said. “We’ve been trying to work out our relationship since 2005 and it’s very unfortunate we’ve had to take this route.”
