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Port
Spin: "Oh, THAT dirty fill..."
Port
spin watchers got a taste of portspin in full action in
Larry Lange's article on the battle over the dirty fill
bill in the legislature. April 12, 2003 Seattle Post
Intelligencer.
In
the article Port lobbyist Terry Finn backs off previous
Port claims that they only use "clean" fill. RCAA
responded to that claim by publishing a page on the dirty
fill bill with a August
9, 2000 photo
of the Hamm Creek "clean" fill showing a large
rubber tire in it.
Finn
now says the port will use "virgin," or natural
soil, for the runway once construction resumes.
He
told the PI that "Some contaminated soil was taken
to the runway site from the Hamm Creek cleanup project at
the Duwamish River; port officials said it met pollution
limits at the time but would not under today's higher limits."
What
higher limits are they referring to? The Hamm Creek fill
(see photo below) never met pollution limits. The
Port only claimed it did by mis-using the disputed SPLP
test. It failed the first, more accurate test, so the Port
used to less accurate SPLP to claim it passed. (Reminds
us of the football player who flunks his calculus test,
so they give him another test he can pass—even
if it doesn't measure his knowledge of calculus.) The Pollution
Control Hearings Board said they could not use the SPLP
to pass fill that can't meet the more accurate tests of
the existing limits. This decision is apparently
what the Port is calling a "higher limit" and
going to the leggie to force everybody in the whole state
to use the inadequate SPLP test.
Meantime,
the spinwatch gang is wondering what exactly constitutes
virgin, "natural" soil. How about the ore from
a arsenic mine. Hey...it's "natural".
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