SITE DESCRIPTION

Visit the project home page for more information and the latest news about this cleanup: https://ecology.wa.gov/Spills-Cleanup/Contamination-cleanup/Cleanup-sites/Toxic-cleanup-sites/UW-Tacoma

The University of Washington Tacoma (UWT) site is on about fifty acres in south downtown Tacoma. The site includes a mix of old and current building development, ranging from new construction to structures over a century old. 
 
This part of downtown has a long industrial legacy that caused soil and groundwater to be contaminated with:

• petroleum hydrocarbons
• polyaromatic hydrocarbons in soil
• volatile organic compounds in groundwater, especially tri- and tetrachloroethene

Ecology’s Toxics Cleanup Program is now the lead for the site and has developed a new Agreed Order to include the expanded site footprint and focus on area-wide groundwater contamination, now considered the principal environmental issue.

In the 1980s, there was a dangerous waste management facility, Arrcom Inc. at the site. They closed and Washington State took over the site along with an adjacent property in the 1990s. In 1997, UWT and Ecology signed a Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) Agreed Order (AO) to start site cleanup. Under the terms of the AO, UWT accepts responsibility as liable party and agrees to work on remedial actions to clean up soil and groundwater at the site.

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Acronyms used by the Toxics Cleanup Program
• Cleanup Process: Major Steps & Definitions
• Data Submittal Requirements for All Cleanup Sites
• Toxics Cleanup publications