PORT ANGELES — The state Department of Ecology has hired a second contractor to complete a delayed environmental study of Port Angeles Harbor sediment, an element necessary for a plan to clean up Rayonier Inc.’s former mill site.
The $106,000 second contract for the study, which was initially slated to be completed about a year ago, was signed with Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) in September, Ecology officials said.
Results are expected by March.
The company will be responsible for providing data that will determine the source of contaminants found in samples taken in summer 2008, said Rebecca Lawson, regional manager for Ecology’s toxics cleanup program.
Lawson and three other staff members held an open house on the Rayonier cleanup project in Port Angeles on Wednesday night.
About 25 people attended.
The staff members provided updates on the 10-year-old cleanup effort for the Rayonier property on the Port Angeles waterfront.
The Rayonier property is contaminated with pockets of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxin, arsenic and other toxins left by the pulp mill, which operated there for 68 years before closing in 1997.
Ecology had expected the first contractor, Ecology and Environment Inc., to provide the information it now seeks from SAIC, Lawson said.
But the company will provide only the “raw data” on contaminants found in the approximately 1,600 samples.
Lawson said Ecology and Ecology and Environment have disagreed over what data the company will provide in its $1.5 million contract.
She said Ecology chose to get the additional “in-depth analysis” with another contractor to avoid delays with the cleanup of the Rayonier site.
Rayonier will use the data to develop its cleanup plan for 1,325 acres of harbor sediment near its property at the north end of Ennis Street.
Ecology and Rayonier Properties LLC — the property management firm of Rayonier Inc. — signed a cleanup agreement in March that outlines a three-year time line for a plan for cleaning up both the 75-acre former mill site and 1,325 acres of harbor sediment in an area that extends about a mile northeast from shore.
Lawson said Rayonier needs the sediment environmental study by March to stay on schedule.
“It’s my No. 1 priority,” said Lawson, who oversees industrial cleanups in Ecology’s southwest region, which encompasses the North Olympic Peninsula and 12 counties.
“I want it to be on schedule.
“We are very mindful of the schedule, and I think we can do it.”
Ecology also conducted a study of soil in and around Port Angeles in 2008 for the Rayonier cleanup.
The final report is expected to be drafted by the end of the year, Lawson said.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
