PORT ANGELES — The Port of Port Angeles commissioners will consider at their Feb. 22 meeting a resolution encouraging the state and Rayonier Inc. to speed up the cleanup timeline, the port executive director told the Port Angeles Business Association on Tuesday.
The Port Angeles City Council passed a resolution last week protesting a three-year timeline established by the state Department of Ecology and Rayonier for more study on the former mill site on the Port Angeles Harbor.
An agreement, which has been signed by Rayonier but which Ecology will consider after a public comment period, maps out actions taking three years before an interim plan could be developed for the cleanup of the site.
The Department of Ecology was invited Saturday to the Tuesday meeting, which was attended by about 40 people, but could not arrange to be there that quickly, said Rebecca Lawson, regional section manager for the Toxic Cleanup Program, in a letter to the association.
Instead of hearing from Ecology, those at the meeting heard frustration about the timeline expressed by port Executive Director Jeff Robb, Port Angeles Harbor-Works Development Authority Executive Director Jeff Lincoln, and Larry Dunn, cleanup manager for the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe.
“From both Ecology and Rayonier’s perspective, they don’t think they can make this go any faster than three years — and that’s a problem because this has been going on for more than a decade,” Lincoln said.
“However with the influence and initiative taken by [City Manager] Kent Myers, and the activism of the city staff, we are pushing forward in a number of ways, and there is a fundamental change in the playing field.”
Lincoln said he has suggested a number of ways the cleanup might happen faster — including cleaning it up parcel by parcel.
“I have been told in no uncertain terms that that is not going to happen in this case,” Lincoln said.
He said the lengthy timeline was frustrating.
“If this is an expedited cleanup, someone will have to explain to me what a routine cleanup is,” he said.
He cited examples of slow response from Ecology in the past.
“They released a sampling and analysis plan and they put it out for comment in 2008,” Lincoln said. “They had responses from Rayonier and Nippon, among others. They had eight comments.
“It took them four months to respond to those eight comments. The response was 30 pages long.”
Dunn said that the main concern for the tribe — a partner in the cleanup with Rayonier and Ecology, which has overseen the project since 2000 — was that everything was done to preserve the ecosystem of Ennis Creek, an area that was once the site of an ancient Klallam village.
“Our position has been pretty consistent,” Dunn said.
“We’d like to see the cultural resources protected and the fisheries protected.
“We didn’t agree with the timeline, and we did try to get it shortened, but it is between Rayonier and Ecology, and they are the ones who make those decisions.”
Robb referred to the Port of Port Angeles bid to be the base for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s four research ships.
“It is really too bad we didn’t engage more aggressively six years ago,” Robb said.
“That site would have been an ideal place for the NOAA’s ships.
“If it had been cleaned up we would have been in a position to have it go in there.
“But more opportunities will come along — whether it is a business, or the Navy or any number of things that we aren’t yet aware of.”
Proposals also came from Seattle, and from the Port of Bellingham, and the Port of Newport, 114 miles from Portland, Ore., where NOAA ultimately decided to move its fleet.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladaily news.com.