Trainsong Park Brownfield Update

11/19/2025 by Emily Proudfoot, Principal Landscape Architect, City of Eugene Public Works

I am writing today to provide an overdue update to our Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Brownfields funded project to remediate contaminated soil in Trainsong Park.  This message contains some details of progress so far, where we are now, and where we’re hoping to go in this coming year.  The executive summary is that we’re making good planning progress, but our project came to a temporary standstill with the shutdown of the federal government in October.  Now that it has re-opened, we’re moving ahead with additional on-site soil testing that will start this Friday.

As a reminder, staff from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality discovered several areas of high dioxin concentrations in soils at Trainsong Park in 2022 and were able, at a high level, to characterize this contamination into a map and report in 2023.  Parks staff immediately fenced and signed the contaminated areas and informed residents of the soil contamination.  From there the project was turned over to City of Eugene and staff from Parks and Open Space successfully applied for a $1.526 million cleanup grant from the EPA Region 10 Brownfields Program.  This grant request assumed the removal of about 6” of topsoil in the contaminated areas identified, and replacement of this soil with clean fill and grass seeding. 

The good news is that we’ve made incredible progress in the background over the last 18 months in planning for the project work at Trainsong Park.  To date, we’ve finalized the work plan and entered into a cooperative agreement with the EPA for the planning, design and construction of the project.  We’ve also worked to identify wetlands and perform an archeological study of the site.  Most recently our environmental engineering team submitted a process plan for additional soil testing at Trainsong to determine the depth of contamination, if any, in the affected areas. 

The EPA has now approved this testing plan, and the work will start this coming Friday.  This first phase of soil testing will be relatively light duty as it involves about a day of hand-sampling on site by a few technicians.  This phase will help engineers understand soil contamination levels at a more granular scale which will then inform them on how to proceed with additional soil depth testing.  The soil depth testing will likely occur within the next couple of months, and we’ll be in touch when we know specific dates.

In the meantime, here’s an approximate timeline of project work yet to come:

a.      Early 2026 – City will host first community meeting to share the results of the testing and the associated updated construction plan.

b.      Spring 2026 – City will host a second community meeting before construction starts to frame the work, answer questions, and assure collective safety during the work.

c.      Summer 2026 – Remediation construction occurs.

d.      Fall 2026 – City will host a third community meeting post-construction to share project information, and ideas and plans for additionally funded park renovations and improvements to reduce winter flooding.

For now, if you would like additional information about this project, our Trainsong Park Soil Cleanup website has a lot of detailed information and we’ll keep it up to date as more becomes available.

You can also reach out to us with any questions or concerns, and we’ll be happy to answer them as best we can.

Thank you for your enduring patience as we work to re-open all of Trainsong Park back up to the community.