PORT ANGELES — The city of Port Angeles will receive access to the Rayonier Inc. property on the Port Angeles waterfront after April 1 to further plans to use a water tank there.
The City Council unanimously approved on Tuesday a three-year license agreement with the company — from April 1 to March 31, 2012 — at $5,000 annually.
The agreement allows city staff to enter Rayonier’s 75-acre property to complete its plans to use the company’s 5-million-gallon water tank to store untreated sewage during heavy rainfall.
The agreement does not give the city use of the tank, which it eventually wants.
Rayonier executives have told city staff that the firm will not sell the tank, and necessary rights of way, to the city unless such a sale occurs at the same time that Harbor-Works Public Development Authority acquires the rest of the property.
One of the city’s goals in forming Harbor-Works was that Rayonier would give the tank to the city at no cost, and in exchange, the public development authority, which it formed with the Port of Port Angeles in May, would take on cleanup liability of the Rayonier property, City Attorney Bill Bloor told the City Council in December.
Questions answered
The license agreement was tabled at the Feb. 17 meeting because of questions raised by City Council member Larry Williams.
At the Tuesday meeting, Williams said those concerns have been resolved.
“I am very satisfied with how staff handled that situation,” he said.
Above-ground pipes would send the sewage to the tank along the Waterfront Trail. The sewage would be drained into the city’s water treatment plant adjacent to the Rayonier property.
The city must comply with a state Department of Ecology order that it nearly eliminate untreated sewage from entering marine waters by 2016 or be fined $10,000 a day.
During the public comment period, four people spoke against the agreement.
Sequim resident Darlene Schanfald of the Olympic Environmental Council Coalition said the city is not using best-available science in its decision.
The city is under the gun,” said City Council member Dan Di Guilio, reiterating city staff’s position that acquiring the tank is the most efficient, cheapest means of meeting Ecology’s deadline.
The city estimates it will cost between $32 million and $42 million to comply. It has borrowed $10 million from Ecology and is repaying loans through $2-a-month increases in utility rates every year.
Harbor-Works is chartered with assisting in the environmental cleanup of the Rayonier property — an Ecology cleanup site since 2000 — directing its redevelopment and assisting in harbor-wide planning.
The property is contaminated with PCBs, dioxins and other toxic chemicals emitted by a Rayonier pulp mill that operated for 68 years there before closing in 1997.
The agreement was vetted with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe and the port.
________
Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
