CORRECTED VERSION: Corrects motion on which City Council voted 5-1 regarding the former city landfill.
PORT ANGELES — The City Council has approved a $300,000 expenditure to begin efforts to stabilize the closed landfill’s severely eroding bluff above the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The council voted 5-1 Tuesday for the contract amendment to move forward with addressing erosion problems on the bluff in western Port Angeles.
During a council discussion period, Councilman Max Mania proposed to remove all the dump’s refuse, a mammoth effort city officials said could cost more than $100 million. Council members discussed Mania’s idea, but a motion to that effect was never made and was never brought up for a vote.
[A Peninsula Daily News report in the Clallam County edition today and appearing earlier on this website erroneously said the vote was against a proposal by Councilman Mania to consider removing all the dump’s refuse. There was no motion to remove all the landfill’s garbage.]
The $300,000 amendment to an existing $96,650 landfill-repair-related agreement with Seattle-based Herrera Environmental Consultants includes installation of shoreline monitoring devices. The only negative vote on the 5-1 council amendment motion was cast by Mania.
The monitoring devices will measure wave action that is now compromising between 350,000 and 550,000 cubic yards of garbage sited 125 feet above the Strait.
Herrera is designing repairs to a damaged drainage system along the bluff that has exposed garbage at the dump, where all three cells have been closed since 2007.
The contract add-on includes a mitigation plan to assess the impact of stabilizing the toe of the bluff with riprap-like, geometrically shaped dolosse that disperse wave energy while preventing erosion.
The $300,000 contract amendment — which was recommended by the city Utility Advisory Committee — will be covered by funds from the city landfill closure fund, which has a $3.5 million balance.
The Seattle-based company also will assess the condition of a landfill cell whose edge is 11 feet away from the bluff’s edge.
City and Herrera officials say landfill Cell 304 is in danger of releasing garbage into the sea and that the problem should be completely addressed by 2015. The landfill is located at the end of 18th Street.
Construction work would begin on the bluff sea wall in 2014.
After bluff stabilization, city officials are contemplating a more permanent fix in which more than one-third of the garbage would be moved from the compromised landfill cell’s seaward side away from the bluff to elsewhere in the landfill.
Refuse would be sloped to stabilize the pile, and a 100-foot setback would be established from the toe of the bluff to the edge of the new pile of refuse.
The total fix could cost $11.1 million, according to a Herrera report.
That could mean an increase of up to $1.71 per month for city utility ratepayers, City Engineer Mike Puntenney said.
Erosion is cutting away the bluff at a rate of 3 to 5 feet a year and is undermining the landfill to the point that it eventually will collapse, Puntenney said.
“It is going to happen,” Puntenney said.
“It is inevitable in its present condition.”
If that happens, Puntenney said, the state Department of Ecology and federal Environmental Protection Agency would be brought into the picture.
“We’ll have more attention than you could possibly want,” he said.
One of the options in Herrera’s June 12 report to the city Utility Advisory Committee was to remove all the garbage in Cell 304 — an estimated 350,000 to 550,000 cubic yards — and transport it to a landfill in Tacoma County or Klickitat County.
Completely removing 350,000 cubic yards would cost $45.5 million, Herrera’s report said.
Removing 550,000 cubic yards would cost $71.5 million, it said.
Complete removal of all the refuse in the landfill — which Mania suggested — could cost more than $100 million, Puntenney said.
Mania said complete removal was the best option.
“I just don’t support anything that is a stopgap measure,” Mania said.
“This is a problem we need to solve, not just treat,” he added.
Councilman Dan Di Guilio, former mayor, said the city could not afford that degree of financial commitment and that the council needed to act immediately.
“We need to address the problem and at least slow it down as much as we can,” he said, adding, “I just don’t understand the logic [of Mania’s position].”
Herrera company President Mike Spillane, who participated in the City Council meeting via conference call, said the solution is not “perfect.”
“Does it give you a reasonable 100-year lifespan? Yes,” he said.
Councilwoman Sissi Bruch was in Maryland and did not attend the council meeting.
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
