LEAD STORY SIDEBAR The Viewmaster Story A timeline of environmental contamination. BY JESSIE SEYFER

1938 Portland piano tuner and amateur photographer William Gruber stumbles into industrialist Harold Graves while Graves is trying to photograph some deer near the Oregon Caves. The two men end up discussing a new way of mounting stereo film onto circular reels, and the View-Master is born. The first View-Masters are made at Graves' firm, Sawyer's, a Portland photofinishing company and postcard maker. 1950 Sawyer's builds a factory on the Hall Street site. Water is supplied by a 160-foot well, located on facility grounds, which feeds a 100,000-gallon water tower. 1951 Operations begin at the Sawyer's factory. TCE is used for cleaning and degreasing metal parts, mainly components of View-Masters, cameras and slide projectors. At first, TCE consumption is minimal--just 10 gallons used between 1952 and 1955. 1967 Sawyer's is bought by GAF Corporation. 1979 GAF sells vacant parcels of land at Hall Street to developers. 1980 TCE use at Hall Street reaches 200 gallons a month. But in June GAF decides to phase out its production of camera and slide projectors and stops using TCE altogether. June 1981 GAF sells the operation to View-Master International Group, Inc. 1983 View-Master sells remaining land to developers but leases back seven acres containing factory. 1988 Hall Street diversifies into Magna Doodles and Erector sets. June 1989 View-Master is bought by Tyco, Inc. 1990 State adopts new rules for federal Safe Drinking Water Act, requiring large water systems to test for volatile chemicals like TCE. 1991 Smaller water systems are required to test for TCE under state regulations. Hall Street water is never tested. March 1997 Mattel, Inc. acquires Tyco. Within months, Mattel announces plans to lay off more than 400 employees--many of them immigrants--but maintains a skeleton crew of 60 workers to make View-Master reels. March 25, 1998 Tests reveal high concentrations of TCE--up to 1,600 parts per billion--in the facility's on-site well. Mattel shuts down well and switches to municipal water supply. March 28-29, 1998 Some 27,000 gallons of contaminated water at the facility are flushed out and disposed of as hazardous waste. March 31, 1998 Mattel enters into a voluntary clean-up program with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. April 1998 Mattel embarks on a massive outreach program to warn current and former workers of potential health hazards. Oct. 26, 1998 Engineers drill sample wells to test for contamination in groundwater. TCE is detected at concentrations of up to 18,700 parts per billion. Nov. 9, 1998 DEQ, Mattel and GAF enter into an official agreement to conduct a formal investigation of the property and to clean up the contamination. December 1998 Mattel agrees to pay a $20,000 fine for failing to test for TCE. Jan. 2, 1999 Mattel takes out a quarter-page ad in The Oregonian warning former Hall Street plant employees that they may have been exposed to TCE.   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published January 6, 1998