Polluted dirt makes way for park on Belltown waterfront

About three years behind schedule, dump trucks full of clean dirt began spilling their loads at the site, which for more than 70 years was home to a Unocal fuel terminal.

The Seattle Art Museum's $85 million Olympic Sculpture Park is now pegged for completion in spring 2006.

To restore the heavily polluted land, thousands of tons of polluted soil were excavated and hauled away, starting in 1989. Millions of gallons of contaminated groundwater have been captured and treated.

And now, almost enough dirt to fill Smith Tower is being spread across the 8.5-acre property, burying the remaining contamination beneath a thick layer of clean soil. The dirt is being "recycled" from a construction project at the museum's downtown location. More soil will be added in a later phase of the project, resulting in a clean cap up to 29 feet deep.

The project is "something very unusual and something very special," said Larry Altose, spokesman for the state Ecology Department, which provided $2.5 million in grants to help fund the final stages of the cleanup.

"The way the Seattle Art Museum is redeveloping the old Unocal site is something that you don't often get to see," he said. "Contaminated land turns literally into a work of art."

Unocal excavated polluted dirt before selling the property to the museum in 1999, and still operates a groundwater-cleaning system at the site.

Since the early 1900s, the property was home to numerous oil tanks and pipelines above and below ground. There were loading areas for railcars and trucks, and a tanker loading dock. In places, there is still soil contaminated with dangerous levels of petroleum products that is too difficult to remove.

Delays in developing the park were caused primarily by uncertainty over plans for rebuilding the Alaskan Way Viaduct, said Chris Rogers, the museum's capital projects director. At one point, there was discussion of running the viaduct in a tunnel under the park, but that plan has been scrapped.

The museum has raised about 75 percent of the $85 million needed for the project. The effort got off the ground with millions in private donations, much of it coming from former and present Microsoft employees. The city of Seattle and King County have also made significant contributions.

The sculpture-dotted, admission-free park will be bound by Western Avenue on its eastside and span both Elliott Avenue and the railroad tracks with bridges. A beach will be created where there is now a steep shoreline, creating an area more hospitable to salmon and other marine life.

There will also be plantings of native vegetation, such as Western hemlock, salal, red huckleberry and sword fern.

One of the last issues to be resolved is the relocation of the trolley barn at the north end of Alaskan Way. The city and county have committed to moving the structure, Rogers said.

One local artist wishes more was being done to convey the process of turning an eyesore into a community jewel. "It reinforces that it can be done in an aesthetic way and not hidden, and it's real," Buster Simpson said.

The one piece of art that has been purchased for the park and announced publicly is "Eagle" by Alexander Calder, a bright red metal sculpture looming 38 feet tall. It is now at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Other pieces will be announced in September, Rogers said.

The sculpture park isn't the first local conversion of a polluted site into a home for art. The Museum of Glass in Tacoma is built along the Thea Foss Waterway, which is part of a massive cleanup of Commencement Bay.

"It's been just a miracle for Tacoma," said Julie Pisto, a museum spokeswoman.