State, company make a deal on Johnson Lake cleanup

Oregon environmental regulators and Owens-Brockway Glass Container have agreed on a partial cleanup of Johnson Lake, an 18-acre lake near Interstate 205's junction with the Columbia River.

The plan, now out for public review, calls for the company to spend $1.3 million to address two hot spots of lake sediment contaminated with high levels of PCBs, a now-banned, cancer-causing industrial insulator. Owens-Brockway, which has manufactured glass in its plant on the lake's south side since 1956, will have to dredge 7,500 cubic yards of contaminated sediment, then store, cap and monitor the contaminated soil on the upland portion of the site.

The lake connects to the Whitaker Slough, which feeds into the Columbia Slough. As a result of the cleanup, PCB concentrations in lake sediment will drop 72 percent, regulators estimate, as will the cancer risks connected to eating the lake's fish.

The Department of Environmental Quality's recommendation stops short of requiring the company to clean all the lake sediment. That would greatly reduce the cancer risk, the agency said, but would require removing 25,000 cubic yards of earth and cost $7.2 million.

Instead the agency plans to rely on clean sediment coming in over decades to bury the remaining contaminated soil and gradually reduce PCB levels in the lake.

Public comments on the agreement are due by Sept. 30. For details, see the DEQ's Web site on the cleanup, http://tinyurl.com/6yhqft.

Scott Learn: 503-294-7657; scottlearn@news.oregonian.com