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Home | Image Galleries | Natural Resource Restoration

Asarco Site Tour

See how CPRD worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), state environmental agencies, and responsible parties to help create a new habitat as part of a hazardous waste site clean-up. The following photographs were taken on August 28, 2000 during a site visit sponsored by Asarco to view the removal of slag from the intertidal zone, the protection of remaining slag from erosion, and construction of new intertidal habitats.

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remediation team members on the beach at the Asarco smelter site

Asarco Team

The Asarco site manager (green jacket) is showing the group the large, light-colored native rocks (cobbles) used to make the new, gently sloping intertidal shoreline. Smaller stones and sand (fish mix) will be filled into the spaces between these cobbles. The dark mounded rocks behind the group are fractured slag that has been removed from the intertidal zone.

Agencies represented at the site visit were the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, NOAA's ARD, the Washington Dept. of Ecology, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

(08.28.00, Tacoma, Washington)

Related Pages on Our Site

Creating New Habitat As Part of Hazardous Waste Cleanup at Asarco Asarco operated one of the largest North American smelters from 1890 to 1985 in Tacoma, Washington, leaving a legacy of toxic slag along the shoreline. OR&R scientists worked with EPA and Asarco to incorporate habitat into the shoreline cleanup.