Duwamish River Cleanup Connections

I don’t normally consider industrial waste zones to be community gathering spaces, but in early August I joined community members on a boat tour of the Duwamish River where we hoped to learn about the river’s history and each other. The tour included an overview of the state of clean up efforts for the Duwamish River Superfund Site—a federally recognized toxic hazardous waste site that many Seattleites commute past every day. Because of its SuperFund designation seeing the Duwamish river from the river itself is a rare opportunity, so rare that many people don’t even know that the river runs right through the city.

Funded by Civic Commons, the tour was designed by members of WTIA’s Ion Collaborators South Park neighborhood team. Ion recruits diverse people working in the private sector, government and community-based organizations to learn more about our community and to collaborate on addressing a local challenge over six months. The boat trip was part of this process, and it aimed to educate tour takers like myself about the city and the people who are working to make it a better place.

Our tour guide, James Rasmussen, Superfund Manager with the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, shared the progress and promise of this vital waterway, including the active salmon runs and diverse wildlife it supports.

The South Park-based team also embraced a wide range of people and organizations, with participants from African Community Housing & Development, Crowded Cloud Inc., NW Complete Contracting, the City of Tukwila, the City of Seattle, Compass Housing Alliance and local youths who were filmed on board as part of the team’s video project to share South Park stories.

This cross-sector collaboration was called out by participants as the key strength of the project. “Everyone thinks differently. It’s also been eye opening for me to see how many people are doing so many things to improve our communities,” said Sid Benavente of Crowded Cloud Inc.

This team of Ion Collaborators were joined on the boat by guests of the Duwamish River Clean Up Coalition, including a group of students from Asa Mercer Middle School—another opportunity to bring together people who might not normally connect with each other in the same place and prompt them to form relationships through learning about their hometown. The idea is that cross-sector collaboration can be sparked by creating unexpected spaces for people to connect in order to ultimately make Seattle a better place to live and work.

“We often are so siloed in our work. With this collaboration, we could see and access resources that we couldn’t on our own, and our project builds on everybody’s knowledge,” said South Park resident and Compass Housing Alliance Communications Manager Brittny Nielsen. “Having this experience has made it easier for me to see how to connect with people outside the non-profit sector. For example, I now know the South Park librarian and wouldn’t otherwise.”

Now, Ion Collaborators are continuing to collaborate. Some plan to work together on neighborhood improvement projects and others are working to start similar teams in new parts of the city.

“It’s been great to work with other sectors without having a specific “ask” or agenda,” said Amy Nguyen, a participant and employee at the City of Seattle. “I’ve bonded personally and professionally with members of my team.”

The collaborations sparked by the South Park team resonated with my personal history with South Park since the late 1990’s. I played in ultimate frisbee league games at the local community center field and helped clean up the skate park in 2011 with a Seattle Works team. When I worked at the Department of Neighborhoods, I continued to be impressed by the sheer number of community organizations based out of the neighborhood but wondered why they had such a hard time communicating with each other.

On the Duwamish tour, watching people from different organizations and sectors work together, I felt like I was witnessing the beginnings of a better Seattle. I believe these relationships are critical to building a collaborative future for our city.

-Frank Nam

August 4, 2019