What in the heck is wrong with the city council and the mayor of St. Helens for even considering bringing in contaminated soils from Portland's Super Fund site. Columbia County has many of these sites their selves, which several are considered sites that are still contributing poisons into our soils and groundwater. A couple which comes quickly to my mind are the old Boise Cascade Mill,and the creosote plant. The old defunct creosote plant was purchased by the Port of St Helens which was a super fund site and now the taxpayers in the port are responsible for the cost of the cleanup.

Back to the city of St. Helens and their new purpose of the waste water lagoon fondly referred to by the locals as Lake St. Helens where the brown trout is abundant or to some locals as the turd factory. The city believes if they take contaminated materials from Portland's Super Fund site from the Willamette to fill in the lagoon they will eventually expand prime water front acreage for future development. What the heck! So the material is contaminated and we want it right next to the river---wow--- now that's a really smart idea.

The councils idea of filling in the secondary lagoon and then building a smaller one over the next twenty years really does not make much sense but then nothing happens in Columbia County that does. Now fill in the bigger lagoon and construct a smaller one but then while filling in the bigger one we want to attract as many business as we can, businesses that would employ many local people. Why would you destroy a functioning lagoon that would serve many businesses? And then have the cost of building another one someplace else.

Oh I almost forgot, the reason the city wants the toxic material is for added revenue to the city so they can squander the funds away, I guess they were not sufficiently satisfied with the taking of the hospital property on Millard Rd. they now need to import hazardous materials from Portland--- which if the soils were such a good idea Portland would keep it themselves instead of wanting to find a sucker to take it off their hands. Why do these elected people think it is a good idea to take everyone's else's filth.

Come on people remove your heads from your perspective Arese's and forget you even gave this idea of accepting Super Fund site soils a thought to begin with.
Studies of the Columbia River and the Willamette River has shown high levels of chemicals. the superfund site in question has revealed contaminants in the soil including polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, dioxins and furans, pesticides and heavy metals, which have been proven to be hazardous to the environment, human health and animals which live approximately with in 1 mile of the waterways who eat and drink their food supply in these areas. River otters have been found to have defective reproduction organs due to the contaminates. PCBs and PAHs are both known carcinogens known to cause cancer and negatively affect the immune system. People who eat fish, such as bass and carp, from the river can be exposed to those compounds.

The city of St. Helens claim that the soils from the site would be non-hazardous and the city would not accept the soils unless they were safe. Well come on--- if the soils were safe and non-hazardous then why in the heck would the site be listed on the nations urgent need for clean up? And if the soil still needed removed because of federal regulations why don't Portland just keep it, I bet they could use it as fill somewhere in the Portland- Metro area.

The city claims if there is a risk it is minimal, well how can they make that call? We all have grown up listening about the minimal risks of certain chemicals, that smoking was not harmful, climate change was not real, the ozone layer ws ok etc. but it all came out eventually that all of it was harmful to our health. So Mr. City Manager and city councilpersons and you too Mr. Mayor we are not buying your propaganda.
Studies have shown that PCBs are hydrophobic, meaning they prefer to stay attached to soil, even after being removed from water and transported to other facilities. Some of those PCBs can, just what we need in the county more toxins.

I sure hope all the citizens pitch a fit over this issue and stop the city from bringing in this toxic mixture into our community. Remember many of the health problems from these contaminates do not show up for years after it is too late.