PORT ANGELES — The impending environmental cleanup of the former Peninsula Plywood mill site will be discussed at a Port of Port Angeles commissioners’ meeting Monday morning and at an open house Monday night sponsored by the state Department of Ecology.
Ecology will oversee the cleanup project, much as it has the cleanup of the site of the former Rayonier Inc. pulp mill, about 1.5 miles east in Port Angeles.
Although sides acknowledge that any redevelopment of the site won’t occur until at least 2015, there’s no timeline for the environmental cleanup process.
That brings reminders of the cleanup of the Rayonier site at Ennis Creek, which began at the turn of the millennium and has seen only limited progress in the 12 years since.
Monday’s general public meeting, which will include light refreshments, according to the agency’s mass-mailed flier on the event, will be from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in Linkletter Hall at Olympic Medical Center, 939 Caroline St.
It will include a 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. open-house session, a 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. presentation and question-and-answer session, and a closing open-house session from 8 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Port commissioners will hear a presentation from Rebecca Lawson, Ecology’s regional manager for the toxics-cleanup program, at 10 a.m. during the commissioners’ regular meeting at 338 W. First St. in Port Angeles.
Both presentations will focus on a draft order between the Port of Port Angeles and Ecology to rid the 439 Marine Drive site of petroleum-based contaminants.
They include benzene, a component of gasoline that increases the risk of cancer; toluene, which is used as a solvent and dangerous when inhaled; pentachlorophenol, a wood-treatment chemical also known as PCP that can harm organs and the immune system; and diesel fuel, Ecology said.
The draft agreed order establishes timelines for stages of the cleanup and “performance targets” for the port, board President John Calhoun said.
At their Oct. 8 meeting, port commissioners authorized Executive Director Jeff Robb to sign the order once it is finalized.
“It’s a regulatory order, so the agency has used all the boilerplate [language] in the world to make sure we are in compliance with the necessary regulations and that we implement the processes and actions that are agreed to in the agreed order,” Calhoun said.
“We are satisfied with the course of action,” he said, adding that the order is “a bit daunting” in its requirements.
“There are more than a dozen deadlines and reports the port has to produce during the course of the two years we think it will take to do this,” Calhoun said.
The draft agreed order, a fact sheet about the 19-acre site, an interim action work plan and a public participation plan are available for review at http://tinyurl.com/pdn-ply.
Comments about the draft order are being accepted until Nov. 19 and can be emailed to connie.groven@ecy.wa.gov.
The property has been home to a plywood mill under various names — including ITT Rayonier — from 1941 to December 2011, when the second incarnation of Peninsula Plywood shut down owing the port, city of Port Angeles and state Department of Labor and Industries $2.4 million total.
The first major action under the order is demolition — expected to begin in November — of 225,000 square feet of buildings at the site under a $1.6 million contract won by Rhine Demolition LLC of Tacoma.
“Beyond that, the costs are less certain because we don’t have bids and contracts,” Calhoun said, estimating that demolition and cleanup could cost from about $4.4 million to $6.4 million.
The port is required to begin demolition during the comment period because the mill structures are fire and safety hazards.
The land is targeted by the port for marine trades once the buildings are destroyed.
“It probably will be 2015 until we can begin to have the site cleaned up to the point where we can do additional new leases for activity on that site,” Calhoun said.
The port’s intention is to make the cleanup process “as expeditious as possible,” Calhoun said.
“Our overriding motivation by being aggressive is we want to provide some jobs on that site.”
Ecology has been overseeing the Rayonier site cleanup since 2000.
There is no timeline for completing cleanup of the 75-acre Rayonier parcel, Ecology spokeswoman Linda Kent said Friday.
The port intends to avoid a similar lengthy and complex cleanup for the PenPly site, Calhoun said.
“We’re doing this in an environment of our knowledge of the Rayonier situation,” he said.
The agreed order requires the port to describe the extent and nature of the contamination, evaluate options for final cleanup, develop a cleanup action plan and select cleanup methods.
As part of interim cleanup, the port must employ erosion and stormwater controls to keep contamination from compromising Port Angeles Harbor, remove contaminated soil “if it is an immediate threat to human health or the environment,” cover and stabilize contaminated soil to protect groundwater and monitor stormwater and groundwater, according to Ecology’s flier.
The agency already has a 2005 agreed order with the port for cleanup of a marine trades area site adjacent to the plywood mill that included what was then the K Ply mill.
Subsequent investigations revealed separate contaminated areas on the marine trades and K Ply properties, so Ecology decided to establish a new agreed order with the port that will be the topic of Monday night’s open house.
There will be a comment period later this year to amend the agreed order that applies to the marine trades area.
A third agreed order with Ecology that is related to the site applies to Rayonier, the mill’s owner from 1971 to 1989, when the company was known as ITT Rayonier.
For 22 years, Rayonier has been monitoring and abating a hydraulic oil spill that contaminated an area under the mill that can only be reached after the mill is demolished.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
