IN MID-SEPTEMBER, some seven months after Bullseye Glass entered a vortex of regulatory oversight and community outrage over emissions of poisonous heavy metals, it was still sending toxic materials into its neighborhood.
Stormwater runoff from the Southeast Portland glassmaker’s roof contained levels of five hazardous heavy metals as much as 33 times the federal maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for publicly supplied water, according to data obtained by the Mercury. Experts say the polluted water might have made its way into the area’s groundwater.
The stormwater was captured as the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) investigated a structure called a drywell that was capped by asphalt in Bullseye’s driveway. About eight feet deep by five feet across and with an open bottom, the chamber—formally called an underground injection control (UIC)—captures water from a downspout off the factory’s roof, eventually discharging it into underground soil.
And while no one is drinking the water captured from Bullseye’s drywell, DEQ Senior Hydrogeologist Matthew Kohlbecker says, “When stormwater exceeds MCLs, the potential to endanger groundwater exists.”
DEQ is currently performing more tests to determine if groundwater near Bullseye has been impacted; the results are expected within a few weeks.
Along with tainted rainwater coming off the roof, DEQ also found approximately two feet of highly polluted sediment in the drywell that has built up over the past 24 years, when—contrary to best practices—the chamber was capped and ignored.
DEQ says the sediment contained “highly elevated levels” of hazardous metals, indicating the effects of Bullseye’s two-decades-plus production of heavy-metal-infused colored glass while using no filters on its furnaces.