PORT ANGELES — Some cleanup work will be done in concert with the placing of the city of Port Angeles’ combined sewer overflow — or CSO — pipeline through the Rayonier waterfront property, state Department of Ecology officials said.
Because the city’s $41.7 million CSO project will disturb the ground and complicate future cleanup in the area of the pipeline, Rayonier will complete work in areas where the pipeline will be placed so the dual projects do not cause additional complications, Rebecca Lawson, Ecology’s regional section manager of the toxics cleanup program, told about 30 people at a meeting in Port Angeles on Wednesday.
CSO amendment
Ecology held the meeting to discuss a proposed CSO-related amendment to the mill site cleanup agreement between Ecology and Rayonier.
The amendment “is intended to eliminate or substantially reduce one or more pathways for exposure to a hazardous substance.”
At the meeting, audience members also brought up general concerns about the progress of cleanup at the site at the end of Ennis Street.
The 75-acre property, the largest undeveloped waterfront parcel on the North Olympic Peninsula, became an Ecology cleanup site in 2000 due to concentrations of petroleum, metals, polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins and pesticides left behind after Rayonier’s mill closed and was torn down in 1997, after 68 years of production.
Earlier this year, an agreement pushed the date for a cleanup plan to December 2014.
Lawson said soil studies in upland areas above and east of the Rayonier property also have been shown to be contaminated but not at levels that demand immediate action.
For now, Ecology’s effort will focus on the contamination located on the Rayonier property, for which there is already an agreement, Lawson said.
“There is a real difference of opinion on how big the site is,” she said.
Lawson said Ecology will address additional areas at a later date.
About 90 percent of the worst of the soils already have been removed from the site, and what remains is “spot contamination,” she said.
So far, Rayonier’s cost for the cleanup has reached $30 million, Charles Hood, Rayonier spokesman, has said.
Audience members Wednesday talked about concerns about swirling dust and missing signs on the Rayonier property, and wondered about a possibility of runoff from stored contaminated soils and the accuracy of continued soil testing.
Missing signs
There once were warning signs posted along the Olympic Discovery Trail, which runs through the site, to warn hikers that off-trail areas are contaminated, but they have disappeared, said Darlene Schanfald, project coordinator for the Olympic Environmental Council, who attended the meeting.
Schanfald also said the fences are insufficient and allow people to climb over or simply walk around them
“I’ve seen kids out there and parents holding babies,” Schanfald said.
Replacing warning signs posted along the trail and dust prevention would be addressed directly to Rayonier, site manager Marian Abbett said.
Schanfald also asked about a railroad bridge that recently was removed and asked why the community had not been notified of its removal and storage in an on-site contaminated materials site.
Storage concerns
Storage of contaminated soils removed from the CSO project in long piles, wrapped in a plastic liner, are not enough to prevent runoff during major winter storms, some audience members feared.
Several also asked for testing of fill materials to make sure they were not being taken from other contaminated sources and, for backup, independent testing of Rayonier’s soil samples.
Ecology officials said they would take the concerns under consideration and make adjustments as necessary.
Deadline for public comment on the amendment is next Wednesday.
Comments can be emailed to marian.abbett@ecy.wa.gov.
More information is at http://tinyurl.com/9qj9sdy.
The purpose of the CSO project is to reduce stormwater and raw-sewage discharges into Port Angeles Harbor.
Trenches for the CSO project will be dug beginning in September, city Public Works and Utilities Director Glenn Cutler has said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.