PORT TOWNSEND — A change made for a proposed gas station at the QFC supermarket in Port Hadlock now allows underground storage tanks for fuel storage within critical aquifer recharge areas.
The three Jefferson County commissioners unanimously approved the amendment to the county Unified Development Code on Monday.
The amendment means that QFC has jumped the first hurdle in building a new gas station planned in the parking lot near its store at Ness Corner and Irondale roads, and now has to go through the permitting process to specify its site plans to the county hearing examiner.
It also means that underground fuel storage tanks can be built in areas where water from rainfall, snowmelt, lakes, streams, and wetlands seeps into the ground into pools called aquifers, which supply wells.
“This code change applies to the whole county,” county Associate Planner David Wayne Johnson told the commissioners.
Jefferson County Department of Community Development staff and the Planning Commission both recommended approval of the amendment.
The Planning Commission voted 7-0 on May 19 to recommend approval to the county commissioners.
The gas-station proposal must go through a State Environmental Policy Act process to determine its impact on the environment.
Amendment approval was opposed by the Skokomish tribe over concerns of protecting its water rights and preserving any aquifer discharge areas from contamination by any toxic discharge.
The city of Port Townsend voiced concerns about the possible degradation of polyethylene pipe used in the gas station project and the county Department of Community Development agreed.
“Concerns regarding degradation” . . . “are relevant only under long-term exposure to petroleum products,” the department stated in its recommendation.
“The county will rely on [state] Ecology and the [Jefferson County Public Utility District] for review and potential conditions regarding specific considerations related to water lines and and materials best suited for tertiary containment, as well as general installation requirements.”
Johnson said that, considering the more than 100 underground tanks in Jefferson County now, his concern “is far greater with old tanks than with the new technology.”
The PUD recommended approval of the proposed amendment.
Counties create “critical aquifer recharge areas” to “protect the functions and values of a community’s drinking water by preventing pollution and maintaining supply,” the state Department of Ecology says on its website, http://tinyurl.com/25pcgny.
The Growth Management Act defines such areas as those places “with a critical recharging effect on aquifers used for potable water.”
The PUD recommended approval of the proposed amendment.
The only other QFC gas station on the North Olympic Peninsula is in Sequim.
Should QFC’s plans be approved, its station would be the third in the Tri-Area, where there are an Exxon station at the southwest corner of Ness Corner and Chimacum roads and a Chevron station and convenience store at the southeast corner of Chimacum Road and Rhody Drive, state Highway 19.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
