PORT ANGELES — Gov. Chris Gregoire has notified city officials that the city can take part in a habitat-restoration plan for the Rayonier pulp mill site — but only in a consulting capacity.
A city representative won’t sit on the multi-agency panel that is putting the plan together, a higher level of participation that was vigorously sought by city and business leaders.
Gregoire notified Port Angeles City Manager Kent Myers in a letter dated last Thursday that the city can work with the Natural Resource Damages Assessment Council in establishing plans for habitat restoration but won’t take part in assessing damage. [See the letter at http://tinyurl.com/pdngregoire .]
“Once appropriate habitat restoration projects are identified, I recognize that local land use considerations will be critical to the design and successful implementation of a [habitat restoration] project that would utilize any portion of the Rayonier site,” Gregoire said in the letter.
“I believe it is appropriate for the city to have a direct role during that part of the Trustee Council process, similar to the role that the cities had for habitat restoration projects at the Commencement Bay and Elliott Bay cleanup sites.”
The City Council, Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce and Port Angeles Business Association had requested that the city be named to the panel.
“We did not get all of what we asked for, but we got a positive response, and we have made some progress on this,” Mayor Cherie Kidd said Tuesday.
But the city still will have a role it didn’t have before Gregoire made the decision by taking part in putting together habitat restoration plans, said Keith Phillips, Gregoire’s environment and energy adviser.
“The governor is saying, ‘Don’t wait until the end of the process to talk to the city; do steps as a council and find a way to work with the city to design a project they can agree to,’” Phillips said.
“She [Gregoire] is asking Ecology to take the city’s land-use role seriously,” he added.
“When [the panel] goes into implementation of a project, the city has got to be directly involved.
“That’s her direction to Ecology.”
City Manager Kent Myers had a conference call about the decision Tuesday morning with Ecology’s Southwest regional director, Sally Toteff; state toxics cleanup program regional manager Rebecca Lawson; and state toxics cleanup program manager Jim Pendowski.
Several months
Afterward, Myers said it will take a several months for the council to take stock of the barren, largely concrete-covered 75-acre parcel, which was occupied by a pulp mill for nearly seven decades until it closed in 1997 and is bisected by salmon-bearing Ennis Creek.
“[The Department of Ecology] indicated one of the keys to success of the whole restoration efforts is city involvement and that they would advocate to other members of the board of trustees that the city needs to be actively involved before any plans are finalized,” Myers said.
“They gave us more comfort that they are taking that advocacy position. We overall are pleased with the outcome,” he said.
Still involved
“Even though we do not have a full seat at the table, we will be involved in an important aspect of the [Natural Resource Damage Assessment] process,” Myers said.
“We hope some time in the next six months to be invited to participate.”
Agencies that participate on the council along with Ecology include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and the Lower Elwha Klallam, Jamestown S’Klallam and Port Gamble S’Klallam tribes.
Assess damages first
The panel’s members will assess damages to the site “and put it into a common currency that represents debt for damages to the Port Angeles Harbor,” Lawson said Tuesday.
“Once that is done, restoration projects will be proposed,” she said.
“They will be valued as far as how far they go toward settling that debt.”
The damage assessment panel already has put together a “conceptual” restoration plan, Lawson said.
“When that is further developed, it makes sense to talk with the city and start to look at what local permitting might be required to implement a project,” she said.
“I recognize the city is very interested in what happens on the Rayonier property, and they don’t want to be left out of a process they feel deals with their city.”
The parcel was the site of the Klallam village of Y’innis until the mid-1800s and contains Native American burial remains.
The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, a partner with Ecology and Rayonier in the cleanup of the site, opposes commercial or industrial development of the parcel, tribal environmental coordinator Matt Beirne told the Port Angeles Business Association in June.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
