J.H. Baxter is a Superfund site. What does that mean?  

Editor’s note: This explainer was originally published in July 2025, shortly after the announcement that J.H. Baxter’s pollution earned its Superfund designation. Lookout Eugene-Springfield is updating it periodically — most recently in July 2026 — as the cleanup progresses to reflect new developments. 

There’s a Superfund site in town.

Wait — what does that actually mean? And what’s happening now?

It’s fair to wonder. The national Superfund program is among the most complex environmental laws in the United States, and fewer than 1% of known toxic sites nationwide receive the level of federal attention that Superfund status brings.

In west Eugene, nearly 10,000 people live within a mile of a Superfund site: the mothballed J.H. Baxter & Co. facility that treated wood products like telephone poles with pesticides. 

J.H. Baxter polluted west Eugene for decades along Roosevelt Boulevard, but the extent of the damage has only come to light in recent years. Here are answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about the site’s Superfund designation in August 2025 — and where the cleanup stands now a year later. 

What is a Superfund site? 

A Superfund site is contaminated property polluted with chemicals dangerous to humans. The federal Environmental Protection Agency tracks these sites on its National Priorities List, created under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act — commonly known as the Superfund law. Listing unlocks federal funding for long-term cleanup, often when the responsible party can’t pay.  

What is J.H. Baxter? 

J.H. Baxter is a business that offered timber services across Washington, Oregon and California for more than a century. In Eugene, the company ran a facility at 3494 Roosevelt Blvd. that treated wood products to resist termites, fungi and more. The facility started operating in 1943, using pesticides in its production process. It closed in 2022.

How bad is the pollution? 

What lies beyond the chain-link fence is the aftermath of 80 years of toxic production: stubborn chemicals that don’t break down easily, because they were designed to resist decay. 

For roughly a decade, residents lived with a stench that drifted from the facility, until regulators stepped in. By the late 2010s, both the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality were testing the air, land and water. 

What they detected: 

• Naphthalene, a key chemical component of tar-like creosote, was one of the most frequently detected toxins in air samples.
• Pentachlorophenol, a waxy pesticide known as PCP, was commonly mixed with diesel fuel or kerosene so it could soak into wood under high pressure and temperature.
• Dioxins, highly toxic chemical compounds, known to form during the manufacture of PCPs or later if treated wood is burned or overheated.
• Natural elements including arsenic, copper and zinc, which can become toxic in concentrated amounts.

Emissions stopped when J.H. Baxter ceased operations at the facility in 2022. Workers mothballed the site — nearly abandoning it with pipes, tanks and containers still full of treatment mixes for wood. The EPA discovered more than 500,000 gallons of hazardous chemicals.

Additionally, pockets of contamination remain throughout the property and underground, almost like subterranean puddles. These pollutants can shift over time, especially during heavy rain. In spring 2025, for example, wet weather raised the level of contaminated water underground at the site. 

DEQ has monitored a subterranean plume of chemicals since 1986. In 2019, DEQ determined that the highest levels of groundwater contamination were on the J.H. Baxter site, but the plume extends across Roosevelt Boulevard under the southernmost part of the Bethel neighborhood, and west to about Bertelsen Road.

Did the contamination get into the neighborhood?

Yes. The facility contaminated yards north of Roosevelt Boulevard with dioxins. From 2021 to 2023, DEQ and EPA collected soil samples from 62 residential properties, and DEQ cleaned up seven. At least one household reported receiving a letter about DEQ-supported cleanup that has yet to happen.

Now that Baxter is a Superfund site, EPA has taken the lead, moving DEQ into a support role. But the federal agency has declined to discuss with Lookout how far the pollution has spread into the surrounding neighborhood, despite having a public document with maps and testing results. 

Project manager Annie Christopher briefly mentioned in a 2025 public meeting that the EPA collected samples to look at how the contaminants may be moving off the property.   Spokesperson Alice Corcoran said to discuss further details at the meeting “was premature to discuss specific waterways at that time and still is.” 

Lookout Eugene-Springfield reviewed a 3,000-page consultant assessment compiling dozens of soil samples — from dry land and waterways. Spokesperson Alice Corcoran said to discuss further details at the meeting “was premature to discuss specific waterways at that time and still is.” 

“Analytical results of samples collected indicate contamination on the facility property, in the residential neighborhood to the north, and within downstream sediment and surface waters.” 

What is the cleanup timeline? 

Two distinct processes of the Superfund program are happening in tandem at J.H. Baxter: time-sensitive removal actions and long-term remedial actions. 

According to EPA, these time-sensitive removal actions address contamination that poses an immediate threat to human health or the environment and must begin within six months. This is distinct from the Superfund process of long-term remedial actions, which includes plans for dealing with contamination for years to come.

In response to Baxter mothballing the site in 2022, EPA launched an $11 million short-term cleanup in 2024 — a mechanism under Superfund program known as a “time-critical removal action.” 

Crews dismantled kiln-like silos where J.H. Baxter treated wood products with chemicals, and they hauled more than 500,000 gallons of waste out of the facility. The short-term cleanup was scheduled to end in 2025 but ran through January this year — longer than planned — due to limited capacity at an EPA-approved disposal site. 

Meanwhile, in February, crews began sampling under the Superfund program’s long-term process — the investigation and study that will eventually lead to a cleanup plan. While sampling, they drilled 45 feet into the ground and found pooled contaminants.  

The EPA is still waiting for data from the sampling, but visual evidence was enough to request another round of “time-critical removal actions.” The request is pending at headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

While they wait for approval, the EPA is planning for sampling off-site as part of its long-term remedial actions. That work was initially planned for summer, but with the region on track for one of its driest summers on record, officials pushed it to fall, when rain returns. 

Cleanup action based on what the investigation finds won’t begin for at least two more years, according to Christopher and Corcoran, who have reiterated to Lookout that they can’t speak on the topic until their remedial investigation is complete. 

What are the health risks?

The Oregon Health Authority and the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency have conducted limited cancer investigations, but the data were insufficient to determine whether chemical exposure was making people sick.

In a separate consultation published in 2024, the Oregon Health Authority evaluated dioxin levels in residential soil near J.H. Baxter and stated that surface water and groundwater near the facility “will not harm people’s health.”

The Superfund remedial investigation now underway will include a human health risk assessment. 

People in the community have been open about how Baxter’s pollution has affected their lives. 

Since the early 2000s, residents and teachers in west Eugene have raised concerns to the nonprofit Beyond Toxics about the air pollution’s impact on children’s health. Beyond Toxics collected asthma data from school districts and found that the rate among students at Willamette High School, about two miles from the Baxter facility, was 20% — more than double Oregon’s statewide rate of about 9%.

A parent-turned-advocate told Lookout Eugene-Springfield about her child’s Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis, which she attributes to living near the Baxter site. Two other families who lived across the street shared that they lost loved ones after the company boiled off 1.7 million gallons of wastewater in 2019.

The chemicals of concern today are different from the emissions: pentachlorophenol and dioxins, found in soil and groundwater. Here’s what is known generally about the chemicals and health risks. 

• Pentachlorophenol: Exposure to pentachlorophenol through air or water may increase cancer risk, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to the National Toxicology Program. Studies have also linked PCP exposure to damage to organs such as the liver and kidneys, as well as reproductive harm. Short-term or high-level exposure can cause headaches, trouble breathing and high fevers. 
• Dioxins: Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause cancer, reproductive and developmental problems, damage to the immune system, and can interfere with hormones, according to the EPA.

Where is the company itself in all this?

Financial records show J.H. Baxter to be insolvent. So far, EPA has spent more than $11 million on cleanup, while DEQ has contributed another $2.9 million.

J.H. Baxter owes the state more than $405,000 in civil penalties and interest stemming from its 2022 settlement with DEQ over pollution violations. The U.S. Department of Justice also fined the company $1.5 million for illegally treating hazardous waste and knowingly violating the Clean Air Act’s pollution control regulations.

The department also sentenced J.H. Baxter President Georgia Baxter-Krause to 90 days in federal prison. She turned herself in to a federal detention center in SeaTac, Washington, on Oct. 1, 2025. She is no longer registered as a federal inmate. 

Lookout has made multiple attempts — through calls, written correspondence and door knocks — to speak with Baxter-Krause or someone from her company and has received no response.