It would create one of the largest Superfund sites in America and the first in which most of the toxic pollution comes from another country. But those are not the only unique aspects of an EPA proposal to add the upper reaches of the Columbia River in Washington state to the list of the nation’s most contaminated lands and waters.
A final designation of about 150 miles of the river under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, better known as the Superfund law, could finally bring some closure to a dispute between the United States and Canada that began a century ago after waste from a massive smelter in British Columbia started flowing across the border.
The designation is also expected to help restore diminished salmon runs that Native Americans in the Northwest have relied upon for thousands of years.
