A special Port of Vancouver Commission meeting today finalized a memorandum of understanding that settles a multi-year lawsuit surrounding the cleanup of groundwater contamination in the Fruit Valley area of southwest Vancouver.
Under the settlement agreement, the port will purchase 11 acres of land, a 75,000-square-foot building, and take responsibility for the completion of the environmental cleanup project at the Cadet Manufacturing facility, located on Fourth Plain Boulevard adjacent to existing port properties. Operations at the Cadet Manufacturing facility, which employs more than 100 to manufacture electrical heaters, will remain unchanged.
In exchange, the port would receive $10 million cash and the right to seek recovery of an additional $14 million in insurance claims. The Port would also drop its current suit against Cadet Manufacturing Inc. The proposed agreement would allow the manufacturer to continue its Vancouver operations, leasing back the facility from the port.
Contamination at the Cadet site and also at property owned by the Port of Vancouver, according to a statement from the port, was discovered as a result of the construction of the Mill Plain Extension project in the late 1990s.
Swan Manufacturing Co., a baseboard heater manufacturer and corporate predecessor to Cadet, had formerly occupied the 0.88-acre site from 1956 to 1964, and was identified as a source of TCE contamination. The port purchased the former Swan site in 1982, where a restaurant/tavern, last known as Ragg’s Tavern, had operated for almost 20 years. In 1964, the manufacturer moved its operations across Fourth Plain Boulevard to its current site at Cadet Manufacturing.
To date, Cadet Manufacturing has removed 540 pounds of chlorinated solvents from soil and groundwater at its property and the Port of Vancouver has decreased solvents by approximately 80 percent at the former Swan site.
To date, the port has spent more than $13.5 million on the clean up project, with approximately $3.4 million paid for by Department of Ecology grants. The Port estimates an additional $22 million to complete the cleanup projects at both the Swan and Cadet sites.
This information was extracted from a statement from the Port of Vancouver.
