COMMISSION
AGENDA MEMORANDUM
Item No.
ACTION ITEM
Date of Meeting
DATE :
January 6, 2025
TO:
Stephen P. Metruck, Executive Director
FROM:
Elizabeth Black, Deputy General Counsel
8f
January 14, 2025
SUBJECT: Settlement Agreement
Amount of this request:
Total estimated project cost:
N/A
N/A
ACTION REQUESTED
Request Commission authorization for the Executive Director to execute a settlement agreement
to recover over $3 million in costs associated with the Port's participation in the cleanup of the
Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund Site.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Since 2001, the Port has incurred costs in support of the cleanup of contamination at the Lower
Duwamish Waterway Superfund Site in coordination with the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency and the Washington State Department of Ecology. The Port agreed to this work and
shared costs alongside the City of Seattle, King County, and The Boeing Company, understanding
that the costs the Port spent would be reallocated at a later date and shared amongst all
potentially responsible parties.
In 2014, the Port entered into a confidential, non-binding mediation process alongside several
dozen other potentially responsible parties to determine and allocate appropriate shares of costs
for each party to pay. The parties agreed to share certain mediation costs as part of that process.
As a result, the Port has negotiated a settlement agreement with approximately 40 parties (not
including the City of Seattle, King County, or The Boeing Company) to recoup a portion of its past
costs. Pursuant to the agreement, the settling parties will reimburse the Port a total of
$3,445,375.45. In turn, the Port will reimburse four of those parties a total of $15,120.87,
representing amounts that they paid in shared mediation costs which exceeded their allocated
shares of cleanup costs.
This matter was further discussed in privileged attorney-client communications. There are no
attachments to this memo.
Template revised January 10, 2019.