Pollution & Cleanup
First, the honest framing: what follows is a statewide screening list, not a check on any specific address. A site listed somewhere in Washington tells you nothing certain about a particular home until you know the distance, the pathway, and the home's water source. Washington's contamination history is shaped by aerospace and heavy manufacturing, a notable military and former defense-production presence, and timber and mining legacies in places, all of which the records partly reflect. The Department of Ecology acts as the state-side partner to EPA's federal program here. Treat the list as background worth reviewing when evaluating an address, not a conclusion about one property.
For contaminated-site cleanup, the Washington State Department of Ecology is the state-side counterpart to the federal EPA, co-managing National Priorities List sites and running its own substantial cleanup program under the state's Model Toxics Control Act for sites outside the federal list. When PFAS surfaces at a contaminated site, Washington, having moved early on PFAS generally, tends to fold it into that combined state-and-federal approach. The orienting point is that the word Superfund here sits over a named office, Ecology, that has been managing toxic-site cleanup for decades.
From EPA's National Priorities List, filtered to sites with confirmed PFAS contamination. EPA's broader Superfund/SEMS inventory is larger and includes non-PFAS and assessment-stage sites.
| Site | Type / status |
|---|---|
| American Lake Gardens/Mcchord AFB | Federal · NPL: Final |
| Bangor Naval Submarine Base | Federal · NPL: Final |
| Fairchild Air Force Base (4 Waste Areas) | Federal · NPL: Final |
| Fort Lewis Logistics Center | Federal · NPL: Final |
| Hanford 100-Area (Usdoe) | Federal · NPL: Final |
| Hanford 1100-Area (Usdoe) | Federal · NPL: Deleted |
| Hanford 200-Area (Usdoe) | Federal · NPL: Final |
| Hanford 300-Area (Usdoe) | Federal · NPL: Final |
| Jackson Park Housing Complex (Usnavy) | Federal · NPL: Final |
| Mcchord Air Force Base (Wash Rack/Treatment Area) | Federal · NPL: Deleted |
| Moses Lake Wellfield Contamination | Private · NPL: Final |
| Naval Air Station, Whidbey Island (Ault Field) | Federal · NPL: Final |
| Naval Air Station, Whidbey Island (Seaplane Base) | Federal · NPL: Deleted |
| Naval Undersea Warfare Engineering Station (4 Waste Areas) | Federal · NPL: Final |
| Old Navy Dump/Manchester Laboratory (Usepa/Noaa) | Federal · NPL: Final |
| Port Hadlock Detachment (Usnavy) | Federal · NPL: Deleted |
| Puget Sound Naval Shipyard Complex | Federal · NPL: Final |
Check Superfund sites near a specific Washington address →
VetMyAddress maps nearby EPA Superfund/NPL sites and grades the address A–F alongside its water, PFAS, flood, and air data.
A statewide inventory is a map of where to look, not a ruling on any single home, and the Washington Department of Ecology's active cleanup role means a listed site is one being worked rather than abandoned. Four factors decide whether a nearby site actually touches an address, and the list addresses none of them on its own: the distance between site and home, the kind of contamination and whether a pathway reaches people, how far the cleanup has come, and where the home gets its water. Superfund speaks in CERCLA and NPL and SEMS, an acronym thicket all its own, but the real question stays plain: does this reach me, and is it close to resolved.
Should Washington show no PFAS-confirmed NPL sites below, that is worth noting without overreading it. It means the federal list has not flagged PFAS at a Superfund site here, yet Ecology's broader cleanup inventory may still track contamination the federal headline misses, so it is not a full all-clear. For any one address, the calm next step is the property report rather than the statewide count.
A site appearing on this page means EPA has confirmed PFAS contamination at a National Priorities List Superfund site somewhere in Washington. It is a statewide screening list. It does not tell you the distance from any specific home, the exposure pathway, or whether the local drinking-water system is affected.
For a specific property, the things that actually matter are:
That address-level synthesis — nearest-site distance plus the home's full environmental profile in one A–F grade — is what the VetMyAddress report is for.
Superfund cleanup in Washington is co-managed: the federal EPA leads on National Priorities List sites, while the Washington State Department of Ecology serves as the state-side partner and runs its own large cleanup program under the state's Model Toxics Control Act for sites outside the federal list.
The Washington State Department of Ecology is the state's lead environmental agency. On contaminated-site work it partners with the federal EPA on Superfund sites and manages a broad state-level cleanup program for sites that do not reach the federal threshold.
The list on this page is drawn from the federal National Priorities List for Washington, the same data EPA maintains. It covers sites statewide rather than for one address, making it a helpful overview to review, with a property-specific report as the sensible next step for any single home.
Our curated EPA dataset lists 17 PFAS-confirmed Superfund (NPL) sites in Washington, including American Lake Gardens/Mcchord AFB, Bangor Naval Submarine Base, Fairchild Air Force Base (4 Waste Areas). EPA's full Superfund inventory (including non-PFAS and assessment-stage sites) is larger — a specific-address report checks all SEMS sites near the property.
Proximity is a starting point, not a verdict. Real-world impact depends on distance, the type of contamination, the exposure pathway (groundwater, soil, vapor), the home's water source, and the cleanup stage. A site two miles away marked 'construction complete' is very different from an active site next door.
Use VetMyAddress to see EPA Superfund/NPL sites near any Washington address, bundled with the home's drinking water, PFAS, flood zone, and air-quality data in a single plain-English A–F grade. EPA's own ECHO database (echo.epa.gov) is the free, official source if you prefer to dig through the raw records.
It means PFAS ('forever chemicals') have been documented in the contamination at that National Priorities List site. PFAS is persistent and can migrate through groundwater, so a confirmed PFAS site is worth pairing with the home's drinking-water and PFAS data to understand the exposure pathway.