Public comment period opens on plan to cap toxic soil at Trainsong Park

The state Department of Environmental Quality has opened a six-week public comment period on the city of Eugene’s proposed plan to address chemical contamination in Trainsong Park.

In September, city officials held a public meeting presenting four approaches to dealing with polluted soil at the 5-acre park in west Eugene. The city’s preferred option is a $1.2 million design that buries and caps pollution in the park, rather than hauling it away.

That option includes: 

• Excavating up to 2 feet of contaminated soil in selected areas and moving it under a new 4-foot berm.
• Backfilling the excavated areas with clean soil, or, in more contaminated spots, with 12 inches of gravel and 12 inches of topsoil.
• Covering 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.
• Paving a 2,500-square-foot area with concrete to create a new park plaza.

Part A of plan

Part B of plan

After the meeting, city staff and consultants submitted the plan to the Department of Environmental Quality in a document called Analysis of Brownfield Cleanup Alternatives.

In a public notice dated Oct. 30, DEQ reviewed the plan and determined “the approach will result in site conditions that are protective of human health and the environment as required by Oregon cleanup laws.”

The agency now will collect and consider public comments before making a final decision. If the plan is approved by DEQ, work would start next year and last through the summer.

So much toxic soil lies in Trainsong Park that it could fill 770 dump trucks. In fenced-off areas are soils containing 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.

Environmental scientists and consultants for the city of Eugene found that dioxins at Trainsong Park stick to soil rather than dissolving into groundwater or becoming airborne. That means the risk is contained to the soil, and those in direct contact with it. 

In 2021, a consultant investigating contamination at J.H. Baxter & Co. tested soil at the park to help set benchmarks for typical dioxin levels in west Eugene, where low levels are common because of industry and other human activity. Instead, the samples unexpectedly showed elevated concentrations.

J.H. Baxter — a Superfund site — is a shuttered wood treatment facility about a mile away that also used chemicals linked to dioxins. 

Government agencies say they do not know how the park became contaminated. They believe the soil was brought in by a third party before the city bought the property in the 1980s.

According to DEQ, not enough documentation exists to provide data in a scientific method that can conclusively determine whether J.H. Baxter dumped anything at the site that later became the park.

Meanwhile, city of Eugene landscape architect Emily Proudfoot said during her presentation at the September public meeting that the contamination is “definitely not” connected to J.H. Baxter. When asked how the city had ruled out J.H. Baxter, Proudfoot said, “We can’t prove it.”

Lookout Eugene-Springfield has asked about the connection because of the proximity of the facility and because public records show J.H. Baxter had historically dumped hazardous waste offsite at the former Day Island Landfill, now under a loop of Pre’s Trail in Alton Baker Park. 

The city is paying for the Trainsong Park cleanup with a $1.5 million federal brownfields grant from the Environmental Protection Agency and city funds. Brownfield grants are funded through congressional appropriations to pay for cleanup, often when whoever caused the pollution is unknown or can’t pay.