Cleaning up the environment while creating jobs matters now more than ever

The Model Toxics Control Act, or MTCA, was created to “[raise] sufficient funds to clean up all hazardous waste sites and to prevent the creation of future hazards due to improper disposal of toxic wastes into the state’s lands and waters.” MTCA, created by voter initiative in 1989, uses taxes on hazardous materials like petroleum products, pesticides, and certain other chemicals to fund the cleanup of identified toxic waste sites across Washington. Of the 13,000 sites so far identified, more than 7,100 as of the 2017-2019 biennium have been cleaned up.

Because of their industrial heritage, many ports across Washington are the sites of significant hazardous contamination—ports care about environmental stewardship and generational sustainability, and actively welcome the powerful benefits of MTCA-funded cleanup.

These cleanups do more than restore the environment- they provide family-wage jobs to the crews that work to remediate these problem areas. We have many such examples of this work from our own port community- and we will be bringing you these stories regularly over the coming months.

One such powerful story is that of the Lower Duwamish Waterway. As Seattle’s only river, it supports commerce and employment for the city’s economy, provides important recreation fishing and tribal cultural heritage resources, and is a critical estuarine environment for salmon and wildlife. The Duwamish industrial area has played a crucial role in developing our region’s economy for over a hundred years: today local industries employ over 100,000 people and support more than 25% of the manufacturing in King County.

In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) listed the Lower Duwamish Waterway as a Superfund site in need of cleanup as a result of contamination stemming from nearly a century of industrial activities and toxic discharges.  State funding from the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) is foundational to restoring these lands, protecting public health and growing employment opportunities the local area. Read more here, and here.

We need your help to protect this funding, which was created through an initiative of the residents of Washington—to keep this funding safeguarded for its crucial purpose in protecting our most important resources, the environment and the economy, for future generations. The WPPA will therefore be educating the state legislature on the win-win MTCA provides for Washingtonians—we ask you in your role at your port to make sure they understand how important MTCA is to ports across the state.