The ASARCO smelting company smokestack, erected in 1917, was at the time a 571-foot tall symbol of economic prosperity and booming business in the developing city of Tacoma. The copper smelting site on Ruston’s shore in Puget Sound brought jobs and wealth to the area, but with it, a price we are still paying for today. Over the course of the almost century the plant was operational, it had been pumping, along with other toxic materials, heavy metals like arsenic and lead directly into the air where it then settled into the surrounding soil and water of the greater Tacoma area. The smokestack was demolished in 1985, but over 30 years later there is still a toxic level of heavy metals in the soil. The city of Tacoma takes measures to warn new Tacoma homeowners about how to mitigate any increased levels of exposure to toxic materials in their soil, but must also take more drastic steps to protect users of publicly-owned land.
