PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles Harbor-Works Development Authority passed a “due diligence” agreement with Rayonier Properties LLC for fact-finding work that will determine whether the 75-acre former pulp mill site on Port Angeles Harbor can be redeveloped.
The agreement will determine the risks, liabilities and feasibility of redeveloping the waterfront property east of downtown.
“I would call it not information, but a well of enlightenment, where we can make judgments about whether we can proceed or not,” said Jeff Lincoln, Harbor-Works’ executive director, before the board voted unanimously to approve the agreement in a special meeting Monday.
Armed with $1 million in loans from the city of Port Angeles and Port of Port Angeles, Harbor-Works will spend $380,460 to study the site, with $69,540 left in as a contingency balance.
Those numbers add up to the $450,000 that Harbor-Works budgeted to assess the site in 2009-2010.
“We expect to see additional costs as we learn more about what we don’t know,” Lincoln said.
“We have established a budget with contingencies that will allow us to respond to the unknowns as they are identified.”
After approving the two $500,000 loans from the city and port, the board unanimously passed a professional services agreement with Federal Way-based BergerABAM for engineering, planning and environmental work as part of the due diligence.
The analyses are expected to be completed in mid-2010.
“The hard work is going to come in the next four to five months,” Lincoln said.
According to the agreement, Rayonier will provide access to the site and access to its data.
Rayonier also agrees that it won’t sell the site to anyone else during the 13-month evaluation.
“We are very pleased Rayonier has expressed their willingness to work with Harbor-Works and the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe to further our goals of cleaning up the site and restoring it to productive use,” said Orville Campbell, Harbor-Works board president.
Legal services agreement
In other action on Tuesday, the board unanimously authorized Lincoln to enter into a professional services agreement with a Tacoma law firm, Gordon, Thomas, Honeywell, Malanca, Peterson & Daheim, LLP, for legal services through July 2010.
The amount is not to exceed $123,500.
The city created Harbor-Works, with support from the Port of Port Angeles, in May 2008 to acquire the former mill site and redevelop the property on which a tribal village once existed.
The public development authority is expected to assist in the environmental cleanup of the land. Exactly to what extent is dependent upon negotiations with Rayonier.
The Rayonier property has been a state Department of Ecology cleanup site since 2000. It is contaminated with pockets of PCBs, dioxin, arsenic and other toxins left by the pulp mill, which operated for 68 years before closing in 1997.
In 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called the site “moderately contaminated,” about 2 or 3 on a scale to 10.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.