Trying to add a payment method? You can do this on the 
QuickTake:
Eugene plans to use money from a federal grant to cap dioxin-contaminated soil at the park. A city official says the J.H. Baxter plant has been ruled out as a source of the pollution, but state regulators say only that the source is unknown and no link can be proven.
Eugene’s Parks and Open Space Division is proposing a $1.2 million construction budget to deal with chemical contamination at Trainsong Park.
The plan calls for targeted excavation of the worst of the pollution, putting it in a pile, and covering it with soil and an engineered protective cap, according to a presentation Thursday, Sept. 24, by Emily Proudfoot, principal landscape architect for the city of Eugene.
Polluted soil at 5-acre Trainsong Park in west Eugene goes deep and wide, with the highest concentrations surrounding the playground.
In fenced-off areas lie dioxins — a group of chemicals that, at high levels, can increase the risk of cancer in people exposed to them, according to decades of research.
“How your body would be exposed to this chemical is actually by eating dirt,” Proudfoot said. “You have to eat a lot of dirt. However, Oregon state law does require that this be remediated and it be protected, especially for children.”
Parks and Open Space faces so much of this toxic soil in the park that it could fill 770 dump trucks. But to remove all of that would cost nearly $3.4 million, according to the spreadsheet of options that Proudfoot discussed at the public meeting.
The plan
After months of analysis, Proudfoot and her team are recommending a plan that essentially seals the contamination in perpetuity.
The dioxins are bound to the soil, and they are not getting into the groundwater, or moving offsite, Proudfoot said.
It’s a cleanup design that is both protective to the public and meets the budget, she said. The $1.2 million comes out of $1.5 million the city received through a federal brownfields grant from the Environmental Protection Agency grant, which has also funded more testing of the soil.
Brownfield grants are funded through congressional appropriations to pay for properties where cleanup costs are often beyond what owners or communities can afford — and often when the party responsible for the mess can’t pay for it or is unknown.
The work is scheduled to start next year and last through the summer. It includes:
- Excavate up to 2 feet of contaminated soil in selected areas and move it under a new 4-foot berm.
- Backfill the excavated areas with clean soil, or, in more contaminated spots, with 12 inches of gravel and 12 inches of topsoil.
- Cover the berm, and a large area around the playground that won’t be excavated, with fabric, 12 inches of gravel and 12 inches of clean soil.
- Pave a 2,500-square-foot area with concrete to create a new park plaza.
The plan was generally well-received from the small crowd who gathered at the Lion of Judah Christian Center.
“I think you guys are on the right track with encapsulating the soil and not trying to get it out,” said Mick Hornbeck, a resident and member of the Trainsong Neighbors association.
In the city’s last meeting about Trainsong Park, held in May, dust coming from excavation and transportation rose to the top of residents’ concerns.
Another resident mentioned the tradeoff of the plan.
“You’re sweeping it under the rug,” she said. “You’re covering it up and saying, ‘it’s just Trainsong.’ So you’re not getting rid of it, and we’re still stuck with the damn problem.”
Part of the long-term plan calls for periodic inspections of the park and its cap, Proudfoot said.
The city plans to submit its cleanup plan, called an “Analysis of Brownfield Cleanup Alternatives,” to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality for approval. The plan will be open for public comment for 30 days. The city said it will notify residents and post a link on its website when the comment period opens.
Unknown source
Fencing has closed off sections of Trainsong Park for five years.
In 2021, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality discovered the contamination while sampling in shallow soil all across west Eugene to understand the extent of pollution at J.H. Baxter & Co., a wood-treatment facility about a mile away that used chemicals linked to dioxins.
At the time, government agencies did not know how the park became contaminated, and they still don’t know. They do know that the contaminated soil was “brought in by some party at some time before the city purchased the property,” according to Proudfoot.
The city bought the property in the 1980s.
Government agencies have repeatedly told residents and the media that it cannot link contamination at Trainsong Park to J.H. Baxter, because dioxins are “ubiquitous” in the environment. They have also pointed to other industrial activity in the area.
On Thursday, Proudfoot told the crowd that Trainsong Park soil is “definitely not” connected with the contamination at J.H. Baxter, a Superfund site.
“There is no scientific link between them, and we can’t make the link,” Proudfoot said in her presentation.
Proudfoot said she and her team talked to an environmental scientist at Oregon State University. The scientist expressed concern about the feasibility of research connecting the two.
After the meeting, Lookout Eugene-Springfield asked for details about how her team had ruled out J.H. Baxter dumping at the park.
“We can’t prove it,” she said, and reiterated information she had shared in her presentation.
She said that her determination was also based on conversations with Oregon Health Authority experts and toxicologists at the Department of Environmental Quality.
In an email Friday, DEQ spokesman Dylan Darling elaborated:
“This is what we have told Lookout Eugene-Springfield and the City of Eugene:
DEQ sampled Trainsong Park and the adjoining neighborhood. Due to the ubiquitous nature of dioxins in the environment, the source, or sources of the contamination is unknown. DEQ could not link dioxins contamination at the park or in the Trainsong neighborhood to J.H. Baxter.”
Darling also referred to an email he sent to Lookout in July where he stated:
“DEQ has not conducted a fingerprint analysis between these two sites primarily because this would not be useful for determining the source or sources of contamination. Without clear documentation of J.H. Baxter stating that they caused the contamination, there is no scientific method to conclusively prove the source of the dioxins (a class of chemicals). While fingerprint analysis may be useful as a line of evidence at some sites, we do not have enough historic information about the likely source of dioxins in Trainsong Park soils to link them to a specific source.”
Proudfoot equated the lack of proof of a connection with ruling out the possibility. And she said the city’s approach would have remained the same regardless.
“It’s semantic,” she said. “It doesn’t do anything for us.”
