What is up with all that jargon?
By: Kate Murphy, Senior Community Organizer
This summer we are finally seeing progress with the cleanup of the Superfund site at Bonneville Dam, where decades of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ activities contaminated the area. As a result, resident fish that live in the area all year are too contaminated to eat. After years of pushing, cleanup is finally beginning on the east side of Bradford Island this summer.
Given the highly technical nature of this Superfund site, much of the written information about the cleanup is full of acronyms. An acronym is an abbreviation for a long phrase made from the first letters of the words in that phrase—for example, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act that created the Superfund cleanup program is called CERCLA (pronounced “sur-cluh”). We decided to help explain what is up with all that jargon. So we created the Bonneville Dam Superfund Acronym Guide.
The Bonneville Dam Superfund Acronym Guide contains over 40 acronyms, the meanings, and an explanation of how they relate to the Superfund site at Bonneville Dam. We hope this guide serves as a useful tool to navigate information about the cleanup by removing some of the unnecessary technical barriers that prevent people who are directly affected from accessing clear information. At Columbia Riverkeeper, we try not to use acronyms—we’re wonky enough already.
People deserve to catch healthy fish they can feed their families. Cleaning up the Army Corps’ mess is complex, but it is possible. The more we know, the more we can engage to push for a swift and thorough cleanup. We hope the Acronym Guide is a helpful tool in the push to clean up the Superfund site at Bonneville Dam.
This product is funded through a Public Participation Grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology. The content was reviewed for grant consistency but is not necessarily endorsed by the agency.