Sellwood Library, Sellwood Lofts, and Rose City Plating
Since 2002, the Sellwood-Moreland Library has been located on SE 13th Avenue a few blocks north of Tacoma, with the Sellwood Lofts condominiums above it. But before this building could be constructed in 2001 and 2002, a lot of people had to do a lot of work (and spend a lot of money) to clean up a huge, toxic mess.
Various electroplating businesses, most recently Rose City Plating, had operated in an old blue building at this site for decades, and had dumped plating materials into a floor drain that was not meant for hazardous material disposal. In the 1990s, facing prosecution under a 1993 environmental crimes law, the building's last owner, Nicholas LeBeck, abandoned it to Multnomah County and dramatically fled the state (you really should read that link), although he was arrested later and held on $550,000 bail. (I've been unable to find out what happened next, but this link suggests he may not have gone to jail in the end.)
As an article by Brian J. Back in the Portland Business Journal recounts, "In March 1995, entering the facility clad in hazmat suits, a Portland Fire Bureau team found decaying, unlabeled and spilled vats of chemicals shrouded by a vapor cloud. Hydrochloric acid and cyanide solutions had apparently mixed together. A decision was made to ventilate the room by opening the doors, but the cloud failed to dissipate by the end of the day..."
From the late 1990s through 2001, the site was cleaned up. Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) spent $336,000 to remove 24,000 gallons of plating waste and 37 tons of cyanide-contaminated sludge by 1995. Lead, cadmium, and other metal contamination remained in the soil. Developer Loren Waxman bought the property for $405,000 in 1998 while it still was significantly contaminated, then the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provided a $320,000 grant that paid to remove the building and haul about ten more garbage truckloads of hazardous material to a hazmat landfill in eastern Oregon. From 2001 to 2002, the mixed-use building that stands at the site today was built, and the library moved in under a long-term lease.
No current Sellwood students could possibly remember the beat up, abandoned, blue Rose City Plating building, but if you know people who have lived in the neighborhood since the 1990s or before, they might remember it (I do). I think all of us would agree the new building is a major improvement!
Various electroplating businesses, most recently Rose City Plating, had operated in an old blue building at this site for decades, and had dumped plating materials into a floor drain that was not meant for hazardous material disposal. In the 1990s, facing prosecution under a 1993 environmental crimes law, the building's last owner, Nicholas LeBeck, abandoned it to Multnomah County and dramatically fled the state (you really should read that link), although he was arrested later and held on $550,000 bail. (I've been unable to find out what happened next, but this link suggests he may not have gone to jail in the end.)
As an article by Brian J. Back in the Portland Business Journal recounts, "In March 1995, entering the facility clad in hazmat suits, a Portland Fire Bureau team found decaying, unlabeled and spilled vats of chemicals shrouded by a vapor cloud. Hydrochloric acid and cyanide solutions had apparently mixed together. A decision was made to ventilate the room by opening the doors, but the cloud failed to dissipate by the end of the day..."
From the late 1990s through 2001, the site was cleaned up. Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) spent $336,000 to remove 24,000 gallons of plating waste and 37 tons of cyanide-contaminated sludge by 1995. Lead, cadmium, and other metal contamination remained in the soil. Developer Loren Waxman bought the property for $405,000 in 1998 while it still was significantly contaminated, then the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provided a $320,000 grant that paid to remove the building and haul about ten more garbage truckloads of hazardous material to a hazmat landfill in eastern Oregon. From 2001 to 2002, the mixed-use building that stands at the site today was built, and the library moved in under a long-term lease.
No current Sellwood students could possibly remember the beat up, abandoned, blue Rose City Plating building, but if you know people who have lived in the neighborhood since the 1990s or before, they might remember it (I do). I think all of us would agree the new building is a major improvement!