The state Department of Ecology is providing another month for the public to comment on its proposal to allow Alcoa to monitor a landfill leaching industrial pollution rather than forcing an expensive cleanup.
The comment period, which began Oct. 5, has been extended for another month at the request of the Yakama Nation.
The 7.7-acre landfill contains an estimated 175,000 cubic yards of industrial waste, ranging from metal piping to scrap aluminum to general construction debris.
It’s now covered by a permanent cap, but the unlined landfill is leaching pollution into groundwater flowing toward the Columbia River. Although monitoring wells reveal relatively low levels of most contaminants, they also show levels above the groundwater cleanup standard for an industrial solvent called trichloroethylene, or TCE, a suspected carcinogen.
