A 20-year Odyssey - Creation of a Mitigation Bank Site Within a Superfund Site

The Duwamish River People's Park and Shoreline Habitat (formerly known as Terminal 117) project is located within the Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund site and is a key site in the Port of Seattle’s proposed umbrella mitigation bank. The project will restore almost 14 acres of important nearshore habitat, including enhanced riparian, marsh, and intertidal areas, furthermore it will restore priority habitat for Chinook salmon and other imperiled species along 2,000 feet of the Duwamish River shoreline. The site has been identified by other local, state, tribe, and federal officials as a high-priority habitat restoration area that will benefit the community for decades to come. However, the process to create habitat in a Superfund site presented many challenges and opportunities along the way. The Duwamish River People’s Park and Shoreline habitat is the culmination of almost two decades worth of effort. This presentation will describe key lessons-learned for habitat creation within a Superfund site, including community engagement, clean-up of contamination, transition of agency oversight, incorporation of Tribal requests, the business case for habitat creation, NRD demand, and innovative habitat restoration techniques. It will provide a summary of challenges and opportunities the Port addressed to achieve the goal of creating a multi-credit mitigation bank site in the Duwamish Waterway.