Columbia River cleanup placed on hold
by Stephanie Basalyga

Dressed in bulky, hard-hatted diving suits, five workers from Advanced American Diving Services on Dec. 19 slipped into the chilly Columbia River. Their mission: to retrieve electrical equipment – some possibly containing hazardous chemicals – dumped more than 40 years ago by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Expected to be a four- to five-day operation, the recovery effort was called off after two days due to bad weather and more debris than anticipated.

The Corps hired Advanced American Diving, a heavy marine construction company from Oregon City, after two light ballasts from old street lamps were discovered this past summer on the shore of Bradford Island, located about 40 miles east of Portland near Bonneville Lock and Dam.

The 20-pound ballasts contained a tar-like substance that tested positive for polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCB's, an organic chemical compound that the Environmental Protection Agency lists as a probable cancer-causing agent in humans.

Grayson Hart, a dive supervisor for Advanced American Diving Services, said that the December cleanup was "fairly easy."

In November, company divers pulled capacitors and other electrical equipment from the river. Similar items, all of them small enough for the divers to lift by hand, were recovered during the December dive.