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Detailed Project
Description

Mitigation Statement

DEQ information
regarding the Zidell
Waterfront Property

Environmental Clean Up
Program At-A-Glance

ZRZ Realty Company has proposed one of the largest privately funded cleanup efforts of industrial land along the Willamette River.  ZRZ, also known as Zidell, owns a 30-acre parcel on the west side of the river, stretching from just south of the Marquam Bridge to south of the Ross Island Bridge, adjacent to the Oregon Health & Science University tram terminal (please see the attached aerial photo of the site). The land has been home to continuous industrial use — including shipbuilding, ship dismantling and now barge building — for nearly 100 years. 
 
Now, in preparation for an eventual transition of this land from industrial to mixed use/commercial use, the family-owned company estimates a $20-million investment to remediate the property, which includes nearly 3,000 feet of land along the Willamette. The Zidell Waterfront Remediation Project, developed in collaboration with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), is the result of more than 15 years of work, during which Zidell conducted extensive analysis of site contamination, habitat and biology, and explored a variety of alternatives for remediating the site to protect public health and the environment. DEQ has accepted Zidell’s plan as the appropriate remedy to clean up and contain contamination under a 2006 Consent Judgment between DEQ and Zidell. The plan will result in long-term beneficial effects for both land and water, including:

• Improving riparian and aquatic habitats for fish and wildlife and improving ecological functions at the site;
  
• Capping over 16 acres of riverbank and river bottom to isolate contaminants from the environment;
  
• Planting more than 200 native trees and 15,000 native shrubs, covering more than 4 acres of land. These plantings will replace current 2.1 acres of vegetation, only 0.1 acres of which is native plants; the rest consists of large areas of invasive Himalayan blackberry and butterfly bush; and
  
• Removing more than 2,100 old, treated wood pilings from the river to improve habitat.
  

Nine Decades of Heavy Industrial Use and Recycling Materials

A ZIDELL EMPLOYEE STANDS AMIDST RECLAIMED MATERIALS FROM DISMANTLED SHIPS, CIRCA 1950s

The Zidell cleanup is necessary because the land is contaminated with a variety of chemicals as a result of industrial uses that began in 1916 with the founding of Commercial Iron Works, which delivered 185 ships from this site to the United States Navy during Word War II. In the 1920s, Sam Zidell leased a portion of the property for his industrial equipment business and eventually purchased the current property as the family business expanded into steel and steel reclamation, industrial valves and pipe fittings, and barge building. The Zidell Companies dismantled 336 ships at their shipyard facilities in Portland and Tacoma , with a majority of the work done in Portland, and have also built 300 barges on this Portland waterfront site. Jay Zidell, Sam’s grandson, now leads the company, which employs more than 200 people in the Northwest. Currently, the Zidell property includes an active barge construction facility, office buildings, vacant land, and a 1/4-mile long, narrow panhandle of riverbank land between the Marquam and Ross Island bridges. In addition to the site’s industrial uses, it includes several large city and Oregon Department of Transportation sewer outfalls which lead directly into the Willamette River. Tri-met’s planned Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Line will bisect the Zidell property before crossing the river. When complete, the clean up and remediation will set the table for recycling the historic industrial district into one of Portland's best mixed-use neighborhoods, with eco-district features and unique pedestrian access to the Willamette River.

15 Years of Study, Analysis, and Collaboration

During the past 15 years, Zidell has commissioned hundreds of samples of surface soil, sediment, riverbank and river water, and found a number of contaminants, including heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and butyltins. Zidell worked closely with DEQ to determine a science-based remediation plan and in 2005 entered into a Record of Decision (ROD) with the DEQ for remediation of the site. In 2006, the two reached a final agreement — a Consent Judgment — of the extent and scope of Zidell’s efforts to protect public health and the environment through remediation.

 
$20-millon Cleanup and Remediation

Zidell plans a complex cleanup that is one of the largest privately-funded cleanups undertaken along the Willamette. It is directed by precise environmental standards included in DEQ agreement. The plan is particularly sensitive to river habitats and the changing nature of the river’s flow along this stretch of land (also known as the “reach” of the river). The dynamic movement follows the bathymetry of the river channel and the historic changes in the flood plain.    

The DEQ agreed upon remedy, calls for:

• Excavating soil human health hot spots from bank and upland soil and disposing of them offsite,
• Excavating soil ecological hot spots from bank and greenway areas adjacent to the bank and either placing them upland (away from ecological receptors) or disposing of them offsite.
• Completing additional bank excavation as needed to stabilize the bank slope
• Placing and engineered cap over all bank and upland soil
• Placing an engineered cap over contaminated sediments adjacent to the property
  
  

	Click on the images below to download a larger PDF
	FIGURE 1: SITE SETTING
	FIGURE 2: THE RIVER CHANNEL MOVES - DARK BLUE IS DEEPEST, RED IS SHALLOW
	FIGURE 3: THE CLEAN UP HAS FOUR ACTION AREAS

From 2006 to the present, Zidell has been working to complete the design and permitting of the selected remedy. Design activities have included additional sediment characterization, bank stability evaluations, chemical migration modeling, determination of the sediment cap boundary location, sediment cap stability designs, and the development of landscaping and re-vegetation plans. Zidell has also been working on source control activities, such as stormwater system improvements, to prevent future releases to the Willamette River.

Through the design process, Zidell’s design team has evaluated numerous design alternatives that would avoid and minimize potential environmental effects associated with the remediation project, as well as enhance habitat values for fish and wildlife.  The resulting design will remediate the upland property to enable future redevelopment of the site and will also create a beneficial impact on the Willamette River.

Habitat benefits of the in-water work include the following:

• 16.28 acres of deep water, shallow water, and riparian habitat will be capped to isolate contaminated soil and sediment from the environment, providing better habitat for ESA-listed fish species.
• 2.14 acres of Himalayan blackberry, 1.05 acres of butterfly bush, and 0.03 acres of Japanese knotweed will be removed; these are listed as B-list noxious weeds by the Oregon Department of Agriculture
• 4.05 acres of native trees and shrubs will be planted in the riparian habitat area
• wildlife habitat will be improved in the riparian and shallow water habitat areas
• large amounts of industrial and urban debris on the shore will be removed or covered with clean substrates
• 2,160 old treated wood pilings will be cut and/or buried under clean fill
• an existing floating dock and moored crane barge will be removed from the site
• stormwater outflows from an old City outfall will likely be eliminated; outflows from 2 private outfalls will be in compliance with state standards
  

Historic Chronology and Future Timeline