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City of Seattle announces awards to seven Duwamish River neighborhood projects

Members of Duwamish Valley Youth Corps

The City of Seattle announced grants for seven community projects serving neighborhoods along the Duwamish River. As part of the Duwamish River Opportunity Fund, these projects will help to increase the sustainability of the neighborhoods impacted by the Superfund clean-up. The projects will begin this year and will continue into 2022.

Decades of industry near the Duwamish have left significant contamination in the mud and along the river’s banks. In 2001, The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) listed a 5.5 mile stretch of the Duwamish River as a Superfund cleanup site. Since then, the City of Seattle, King County, the Port of Seattle and the Boeing Company have invested over $100 Million in early cleanup actions to reduce contamination by 50 percent, while also working to eliminate ongoing sources of contamination.

Since 2014, the Duwamish River Opportunity Fund has granted more than $1.6 million to community projects focused on quality-of-life enhancements in the neighborhoods of South Park, Georgetown, and SODO. The fund is one component of a broader City effort to improve the quality of life and restore the health of Duwamish River communities.

“This award will allow us to take the first steps in planning and designing a Childcare Co-Op focused on Latinx women, children, and families in South Park. This project will also support the engagement of parents in early education and will connect them with opportunities of earning credits at North Seattle College.”
– Analia Bertoni, Villa Comunitaria

“We are pleased to work with the City of Seattle, Cascadia Consulting Group, and especially youth from the Duwamish Valley Youth Corp, on two different outreach efforts to educate the Duwamish business and residential community about protection of stormwater from unwanted pollutants. Funding from the Duwamish River Opportunity Fund will allow us to strengthen these partnerships and more effectively engage community members living and working along the Duwamish River.”
– Michelle Gaither, Pollution Prevention Resource Center

2021 Duwamish River Opportunity Fund Awards

  • $40,000 to Amigos de Seattle to fund a radio show production training curriculum centered on the LGBTQ+, Indigenous, and Afro-Latino communities.
  • $39,900 to Duwamish Tribal Services to plan and design a new cafe and walk-up window on the south end of the Duwamish Longhouse.
  • $39,163 to Duwamish Valley Sustainability Association to support the development of five animated videos and a three-dimensional model that will use simple language to explain the Duwamish River Superfund Site cleanup to the community.
  • $35,129 to Pollution Prevention Resource Center (PPRC) to create and deploy a storm drain stencil and wastewater container decal that will help prevent wastewater dumping to storm drains. The stencil and decal will be targeted at food trucks in Duwamish commercial districts.
  • $39,850 to South Park Arts & Culture Collective to provide free open mic nights, public painting sessions, and ongoing art classes for young people in the South Park neighborhood.
  • $40,000 to Utility Squared Community in support of the Municipal Utility Services & Infrastructure Quick-Curriculum, a project that aimed at building the next-generation infrastructure workforce and accelerating job readiness through sparking youth curiosity and cultivating knowledge of Municipal Utility Services & Infrastructure.
  • $40,000 to Villa Comunitaria to fund the early stages of the organizing and development of a South Park Childcare Cooperative that will primarily serve Latinx women, children and families in South Park.

To learn more about the fund, visit seattle.gov/neighborhoods/programs-and-services/duwamish-river-opportunity-fund. For questions, call (206) 233-0093 or email drof@seattle.gov.


About the Duwamish River Opportunity Fund

The City of Seattle is working to make the Superfund cleanup of the Duwamish River result in the optimum outcome for the river and its adjacent neighborhoods. In addition to its commitment to the clean-up efforts, the City recognizes that the communities along the Duwamish have many needs. To address some of these, the Duwamish River Opportunity Fund was created in 2014 to enhance existing programs and support new ones. Seattle Department of Neighborhoods manages the fund.