EPA wants more short-term cleanup at J.H. Baxter, besides Superfund work 

The Environmental Protection Agency intends to launch another round of expedited cleanup work at the shuttered J.H. Baxter & Co. facility in west Eugene — this time targeting contamination buried underground. 

Last year in July, the agency designated J.H. Baxter a Superfund site, which unlocks federal funding for long-term cleanup. 

But work began before that: EPA launched a short-term $11 million cleanup after the extent of J.H. Baxter’s pollution came to light in 2022. The facility used cancer-causing chemicals in its wood-treatment work for decades, contaminating the site and nearby residential yards.

That short-term cleanup — called a “time-critical removal actions” — is distinct from the Superfund program’s long-term “remedial” process, which plans for dealing with the contamination for years to come.

EPA’s first removal action, launched in 2024, focused on the facility’s above-ground tanks and structures. Crews dismantled kiln-like silos where J.H. Baxter treated wood products with chemicals. The EPA hauled more than 500,000 gallons of waste off the property — work that wrapped up in January, months later 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.

They drilled 45 feet into the ground, and when they pulled the cores out, they saw thick, oily contamination. That was enough evidence for EPA to request another round of time-critical removal actions. Annie Christopher, EPA’s remedial project manager for the J.H. Baxter site, said she’s still waiting on data to come back from the agency’s contractor.

“We were able to move forward with making these decisions based on the visual observations from the soil cores,” she said. 

In April, Randy Nattis, EPA’s on-scene coordinator in the agency’s Region 10 office for the Pacific Northwest, drafted a memo requesting $11.5 million in funding from headquarters in Washington, D.C. The request is pending. 

Nattis has worked on the site since the cleanup began in 2024. He said he isn’t surprised EPA is going back for more funding — but combined with the first round, the total will approach $25 million for short-term cleanup alone. 

“It’s very unique for us to spend this kind of money on a time-critical removal action,” Nattis said. 

“Early actions are always an option on Superfund sites,” Christopher continued. “But we’ve really made that a big priority for this site in particular.”

Asked why J.H. Baxter has been prioritized, Christopher and Nattis both pointed to a concerted push to speed up the Superfund process. Nattis said community interest and involvement with the J.H. Baxter core group — convened by the state Department of Environmental Quality and the Oregon Health Authority — is part of what’s driving that pace.

While they wait for approval, Christopher’s team is preparing for a new round of off-site sampling — groundwater, surface water, sediment and possibly residential soil. 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. 

Initial assessment

Lookout Eugene-Springfield reviewed a 3,000-page consultant assessment compiling dozens of soil samples — from dry land and waterways. The assessment, released in 2024, includes findings such as:

• A map showing 15 miles of surface water downstream of J.H. Baxter and how drainage channels next to the facility converge into Amazon Creek at Meadowlark Prairie. 
• “Site-attributable” dioxin compounds in those drainage channels, according to samples.
• Dioxin compounds “detected in sediment samples from Amazon Creek and Clear Lake.”

The assessment states in its conclusion: “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.” 

In a public meeting last year, Christopher briefly mentioned that the EPA collected samples to look at how the contaminants may be moving off the property, but she did not discuss findings from the 2024 assessment.

The EPA has declined Lookout Eugene-Springfield’s request for an on-the-record walkthrough of the assessment with project managers. The reason, spokesperson Alice Corcoran said, is that it was “premature to discuss specific waterways at that time and still is.” 

Corcoran said the assessment “does not offer definitive conclusions about where contamination has migrated. That will come from a completed remedial investigation.”