Troy Laundry Seattle

The Department of Ecology (Ecology) and Ponte Gadea have entered into a legal agreement called a Prospective Purchaser Consent Decree (PPCD) prior to the sale of a downtown Seattle property. The property is located at 300 Boren Avenue North and 399 Fairview Avenue North (previously listed as 307 Fairview Avenue North). 


The PPCD requires the operators to:

    * Monitor groundwater beneath the property;
    * Monitor groundwater beneath the adjacent rights-of-way located north (Harrison Street), west (Boren Avenue North), and south (Thomas Street) of the property;
    * Perform additional groundwater treatment if deemed necessary.

The Public Participation Plan details how people can be involved in the progress of this cleanup site.

View these documents by following the links below, or go to the "Electronic Documents" Section listed to the right of this page.

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The Troy Laundry Property is a recently redeveloped city block in South Lake Union that is part of the Troy Laundry Seattle cleanup site (Site). It operated as an industrial laundry and dry cleaning facility from 1926 until 1985. Touchstone, the current owner of the Property, performed cleanup activities in coordination with redevelopment and is now proposing to sell the Property to Ponte Gadea Seattle, LLC (Ponte Gadea).

Contamination
Hazardous dry cleaning solvents, heating oil, and gasoline products were used and stored in 19 above- and under-ground tanks located on the Property.  Dry cleaning solvents and petroleum were released on the Property, resulting in soil and groundwater contamination. Contaminants found included:
 
·         Tetrachloroethene (PCE) and its degradation compounds trichloroethene (TCE), cis-1,2-dichloroethene (DCE), and vinyl chloride (VC).
·         Gasoline, diesel, and oil-range petroleum hydrocarbons.

Agreed Order and Interim Action
2012:  Ecology enters into an Agreed Order with Touchstone, the current owner of the Property. The Order requires Touchstone to:
    * Complete an investigation (RI/FS) of the site;
    * Prepare a draft cleanup plan (DCAP) for the site.

2013:  Ecology and Touchstone amend the Agreed Order, providing for:
    * An interim cleanup action (Interim Action) to be performed in coordination with property redevelopment;

2014: Touchstone conducts Interim Action work:
    * Excavates and disposes of 100,000+ tons of contaminated soil;
    * Installs groundwater treatment system to address contamination remaining in groundwater beneath and adjacent to the property. The treatment system injects edible oil into groundwater in order to degrade dry cleaning solvents and petroleum into byproducts that do not pose a threat to human health and the environment.

2015:  Interim Action work completed:
    * Construction of two new commercial buildings on property
    * Touchstone begins evaluating indoor air quality (vapor intrusion) in new buildings to ensure that residual groundwater contamination is not creating health risks.

Additional Agreed Order & PPCD Work
The cleanup that Touchstone performed on the Property as an interim action is not necessarily the final cleanup remedy for the Site. Upon entry of the PPCD, Touchstone will remain obligated under the Agreed Order to investigate the full nature and extent of contamination at the Site and evaluate site-wide cleanup options.
While Touchstone will complete the work required under the Agreed Order for the entire Site, the PPCD will require Ponte Gadea to perform monitoring of groundwater beneath the Property and beneath the adjacent rights-of-way located north of the Property (Harrison Street), west of the Property (Boren Avenue North), and south of the Property (Thomas Street), and to perform additional groundwater treatment on the Property if necessary. In addition, the sale of the Property will result in significant new funds being set aside for site-wide investigation and cleanup.
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a new environmental justice (EJ) mapping and screening tool called EJSCREEN. It is based on nationally consistent data and an approach that combines environmental and demographic indicators in maps and reports. See below for information about demographics in the area of the Troy Touchstone in South Lake Union, Seattle.

EJSCREEN Census Block Map - This shows the Census Blocks used to generate the reports below.

EJSCREEN ACS Summary Report Troy Touchstone – This shows the demographic information about the population of the area.

EJScreen Report Troy Touchstone – This report shows the values for environmental and demographic indicators and EJSCREEN indexes. These percentiles provide perspective on how the selected block group or buffer area compares to the entire state, EPA region, or nation.
 
You can also check out What’s in My Neighborhood to find out about other cleanups in your area.