Heavy Metals Remediation Committee Minutes

July 3, 2004

Present: May Gerstle, Shaheeda Pierce, Adam Rawson, Mary Ellen Walker

Minutes from last meeting approved; May will make sure Marian Abbott's handout is included.

Dockton Park Cleanup: Shaheeda has talked with K.K. Soi, who is in charge of the King County Parks' capital budget and with Nikki who is in charge of this summer's renovation at Dockton. The area of concern is where children play next to the designated playground. The playground was adequately remediated in the l980's; but it is likely that the contaminated surface soil from it was spread on the adjacent areas at that time, so there may be relatively deep contamination there. The sampling was done as a composite sample and was high enough to be of concern but not high enough to require Dept of Ecology funding for cleanup. Since it was a composite, it isn't possible to know whether there were any areas that were particularly high. One possibility we discussed is putting a layer of sand on the area, especially since it is difficult to obtain clean fill. It would make sense to combine this with the work planned for this summer.

MOTION: Shaheeda moved, May seconded, unanimumously approved:

Adam and Shaheeda will investigate the area, confer with Rita re any additional thoughts she might have, and make a proposal to King County Parks and Dept of Ecology re reasonable possibilities for remediation. If a few hundred dollars are needed for community matching funds, May will approach the community council for money from the designated heavy metal committee funds.

Private facility cleanup: discussed various potential issues that may make it difficult for private facilities, eg Camp Sealth, the Montessori school at the old Pete Svinth farm, to even contemplate much less carry out remediation activities. Shaheeda suggested we might want to carry out a door-to-door survey in the highest-risk areas of the Islands, asking people what they know about the problem, where they learned it, what they are doing about it, and providing information targeted to their specific needs.

Soil building project: apparently dead.

October symposium: We agreed to schedule this for October 30 (Saturday). The plan is to focus on domestic and wild animals: the impact on them of heavy metal contamination, and the effects of their exposure on humans. Proposed speakers include Terri Byrd, DVM; Sally Brown (re bioremediation) and Rita. May and Adam will interview event planners to help with the symposium logistics (May has previously done all this as a volunteer, and there is funding available to hire someone to do this).

Bioremediation: not discussed.

Video: will be available soon.

Grants for publicity: we have a total of $ 30,000 in grants for publicity/outreach, half to be used for IERE (which has already used part of this and has plans for the rest), half to be used by an organization from Bainbridge which has not done much. This must be used in 2004. We decided that I (Mary Ellen) will ask Nan Hammett, who has been the liaison with them, to call them and ask if they have any plans, and to suggest the possibility of their subcontracting with Mary Ellen to write an article for the local papers on what people can do to reduce the effects of the contamination on themselves and their families.

Website development: Adam has a number of ideas which he will bring to Doug at IERE.

Health care practicioner brochure: We discussed how we might be able to disseminate information to non-physician health care practitioners. It is apparently difficult to reach them. Mary Ellen will distribute handbooks to the local vets, and will contact the King and Pierce County Medical and Dental Societies to see if they are interested in articles for their newsletters.

IRPPC report and discussion: Two great new members have joined May and Nan: Noreen Grace, and Jennifer Smith from VIGA. Jim English has resigned after several years of service.

King County Public Health report: absent.

Contacts database: not discussed.

Next meeting: August 27 at the library, at 3 PM instead of 3:30.