The city of Kent will receive a $100,000 grant from King County for the Leber Homestead Arsenic Remediation project to clean up contaminated soil within the floodplain and improve both water quality and salmon habitat in the Green River.
The King County Council on Monday approved $850,000 in grant funding through the WaterWorks Grant Program for projects throughout the county that improve regional water quality.
“The Kent project is a win for the environment and also for public health,” said County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove in a county media release. “Removing arsenic from the Leber Homestead site provides a direct benefit for both people and wildlife in the immediate area, as well as downriver.”
The city of Kent will use the grant funding to clean up the top 2 feet of soil at the Leber Homestead, located where Mill Creek meets the Green River, south of Riverview Park, just west of Highway 167 and north of South 262nd Street. Elevated levels of arsenic were found at the site, a former apple orchard. The remediation of this area will allow further salmon habitat restoration work to move forward.
This project, in conjunction with four other salmon habitat enhancement projects proposed or completed in Kent, are expected to provide the necessary habitat to restore Chinook salmon in the Lower Green River.
The purpose of the WaterWorks Grant Program, administered by the King County Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD), is to support sound investments in clean water and the community.
Community groups, agencies, tribes, and local governments can apply for funding for projects that demonstrate an improvement in water quality in the WTD service area and also benefit its ratepayers. The fund comes from the council’s appropriation of 1.5 percent of the Wastewater Treatment Division’s operating budget for water quality improvement activities. Project grant awards for this round range from $15,000 to $250,000.
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