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San Diego Bay Cleanup Delayed Again

An effort to clean up toxic sediment from part of the San Diego Bay has been delayed. A tentative order was issued three years ago requiring the polluted soil to be removed. But there's been no action

San Diego Bay Cleanup Delayed Again

An effort to clean up toxic sediment from part of the San Diego Bay has been delayed. A tentative order was issued three years ago requiring the polluted soil to be removed. But there's been no action to clean up the area. KPBS reporter Ed Joyce has details.

Decades of industrial use near the waterfront has left a toxic soup of lead, arsenic and other metal compounds in soil at the bottom of the bay.

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The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board three years ago ordered the $96 million clean-up of an area south of the Coronado Bridge.

But environmentalists question why it’s taken so long to remove nearly one million cubic-yards of polluted sediment.

Laura Hunter is with the Environmental Health Coalition .

Hunter : We don't even have a cleanup order at this point. We have a tentative cleanup order but we don't even have a direction from the board to clean up the bay.

Hunter says the water board’s decision to digitize all the evidence supporting the clean-up has caused delays.

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Several waterfront users may have to pay part of the removal costs including the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company , the city of San Diego, San Diego Gas & Electric and the Navy.

Ed Joyce, KPBS News.