EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last of a three-part series on the 75 acres owned by Rayonier Inc. on the Port Angeles waterfront.
PORT ANGELES — When will the environmental cleanup of Rayonier’s 75 acres of prime waterfront property be completed?
That depends upon determination of how much cleanup must be done.
Planning began in 2000 for the cleanup of dioxins, PCBs and other contaminants left by the company’s pulp mill, which operated on the shore of the Port Angeles Harbor for 68 years before it closed in 1997.
Both Rayonier Inc. and state Department of Ecology officials agree that the property, zoned for heavy industrial use, should be cleaned to accommodate uses to that standard rather than the stricter standards that would be needed for an area zoned for retail or residential development.
But while Rayonier officials say that most contamination on the site has been removed, the state Department of Ecology says the work has just begun.
“We should have a plan to clean up the property ready to go by 2012,” said Rebecca Lawson, Ecology’s regional toxics cleanup program manager.
Ecology and Rayonier are negotiating a final cleanup plan — called an interim action plan — now, Lawson said.
The time it takes to complete the cleanup — which Ecology estimated in 2000 would be finished by 2004 — depends on how much needs to be done.
“One of the reasons that things are not moving more quickly is trying to find the full extent of the [cleanup] site before you do anything,” Lawson said.
At issue is how much soil should be removed from the Rayonier property and the extent of Rayonier’s responsibility for any contamination of surrounding property and Port Angeles Harbor.
The cleanup site, Ecology officials have said, will include any place that Rayonier is found to be responsible for contaminating.
‘Ninety percent or more’
Rayonier estimates “probably 90 percent or more” of contaminated soil — 20,000 tons — has been trucked away, company site manager Warren Snyder said last week.
“It contains most of the contamination,” he said. “There might be a large volume of very low-level contamination left.”
Rayonier has spent about $25 million on the cleanup, said Charles Hood, vice president of corporate affairs.
Rayonier has agreed that it is responsible for contamination of its property and a portion of the Port Angeles Harbor that extends about a mile to the northwest away from the property, Lawson said.
But what Snyder describes as very low-level contaminated soil may need to be removed, Lawson said.
“There are data gaps, and some of those gaps are around the extent of soil contamination, and we need to take a look at the groundwater a little more,” Lawson said.
And Rayonier’s responsibility may extend farther than its property line, she added.
The soil Rayonier has removed “were interim actions done some years ago,” Lawson said.
“The interim actions were good, but we are pushing now to define a study area that we both agree is impacted and try to move forward.”
Ecology conducted testing of property around Port Angeles and took samples from the harbor last year to help the agency determine if the Rayonier mill polluted soil and water far from its site.
Results are expected in the spring.
Hood has said the company has been hesitant about conducting testing beyond its property boundary because it is concerned that it could become liable for contamination it didn’t cause.
Looking for a pattern
A harbor-wide sediment investigation and an off-site soil dioxin study must be completed to determine if Rayonier is responsible for cleaning the harbor and off-site areas, Lawson said.
If toxic pollutants are found on private property, Ecology will look for a pattern that points to Rayonier.
Dioxin can be traced to Rayonier by chemical analysis linking the toxin to chemicals and industrial processes used at Rayonier, along with wind patterns and proximity to the mill, Lawson said.
The agency will examine the substances’ chemical makeup and determine if it can trace a “source pattern” to industrial processes unique to Rayonier, she said.
If so, the identification process could be further enhanced by matching wind direction with the pollutants’ locations.
“We will look at the culmination of information to see if we come up with a pattern,” Lawson said.
New leaders
A year ago, Ecology switched cleanup oversight from its solid waste division to its toxics waste division to speed a slow-moving process, state officials said.
The cleanup is being done under the state Model Toxics Control Act, with oversight from Ecology, the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, all of whom must sign off on the final cleanup.
The EPA judged the site 2 or 3 on a scale of 10 for contamination when it decided not to classify it as a Superfund site in 1999.
Community leaders argued then for cleanup under the auspices of the Model Toxics Control Act instead of the federal Superfund program, believing that a Superfund cleanup would take 10 years, and that the Superfund designation would stigmatize the North Olympic Peninsula.
More information on the cleanup and the off-site study are on Ecology’s Web site at www.ecy.wa.gov under the icon, “toxics,” at the top of the page.
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Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
