The Port of Seattle sues Boeing over Lower Duwamish Waterway cleanup costs.

The taxpayer-funded Port of Seattle has sued Boeing, claiming it unfairly spent thousands and thousands of {dollars} on years of planning to scrub up air pollution within the Decrease Duwamish Waterway (LWD) that was largely brought on by the aerospace big.

Driving the information: In its 29-page grievance, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Courtroom in Seattle, the port contends it unfairly shouldered the identical whole prices as Boeing to check the waterway’s cleanup underneath an Environmental Safety Company (EPA) consent order.

• In 2000, the port, together with Boeing, town of Seattle and King County, every agreed to pay one-quarter of the prices for the research that port officers believed “would take no quite a lot of years,” per the lawsuit.

Sure, however: The research has since dragged on for 22 years with prices exceeding $60 million, the go well with says.

• With planning now nearing an finish and precise cleanup pending, the go well with says Boeing ought to reimburse the port thousands and thousands of {dollars} — and pay for many of the work forward — as a result of the corporate was “by far … the celebration with the best accountability” for polluting the waterway.

What they’re saying: “It’s now time for Boeing to pay its fair proportion,” the lawsuit says. “…Boeing has profited for many years partially by cheap disposal of its wastes by dumping them within the LWD.”

The opposite facet: “The Port of Seattle’s unilateral resolution at present to file a lawsuit in opposition to Boeing dangers upsetting years of good-faith negotiation and collaboration amongst numerous private and non-private events,” Boeing instructed Axios in a press release Thursday.

Background: Generally known as Seattle’s solely river, the Duwamish Waterway flows between the neighborhoods of Georgetown and South Park and thru Seattle’s industrial core into Elliott Bay.

• The EPA declared a 5-mile stretch of the decrease waterway a Superfund website in 2001.
• Pollution that for many years flowed into the river — primarily, the probably cancer-causing toxins polychlorinated bicarbonates, or PCBs — have spawned a number of lawsuits, together with separate claims by town and state in opposition to chemical producer Monsanto.

Particulars: The newest lawsuit from the port recounts Boeing’s huge manufacturing operations for over 100 years close to the waterway at 10 main amenities, the place industrial and army plane, missiles and spacecrafts had been constructed.

Zoom in: It particularly zeros in on Boeing Plant 2, the place the corporate constructed “greater than 10,000 army plane” throughout around-the-clock manufacturing within the World Struggle II period, per the go well with.

• After the warfare, Plant 2 “continued to function Boeing’s major plane manufacturing heart,” from which the corporate “pumped PCBs” and different toxins into the waterway “for many years,” the go well with says.

In the meantime, Boeing mentioned it has already undertaken “an early cleanup of a giant space” subsequent to Plant 2 at a value of $120 million, in addition to “restored over 5 acres of fish and wildlife habitat alongside the banks of the Duwamish.”