PORT ANGELES — Dirty dirt costs a lot to dump.
The price of cleaning up the former KPly mill site on Marine Drive leaped another $2.13 million Tuesday thanks to the need to truck away 16,600 more tons of contaminated soil.
That comes atop the $1.36 million Port of Port Angeles commissioners approved last month for an additional 15,000 tons of soil that’s been fouled by a variety of fuels, other hydrocarbons and assorted pollutants.
“This is becoming a regular feature of our meetings,” groused port commission chairman Jim Hallett.
Contractor Floyd Snider originally estimated it would excavate 21,000 tons of soil from the 19-acre site at 439 Marine Drive that was occupied by a succession of mills, among them Rayonier, KPly and most recently Peninsula Plywood.
By the time work is done, 52,000 tons of earth will have been trucked to Bremerton, then taken by rail to a landfill in central Oregon.
The dirt wasn’t the only added expense.
It necessitated two additional months of renting sheet pilings and storage tanks for more than $15,000; an extra $10,000 worth of odor-control foam; more than $281,000 in excavation delays; more than $43,000 in increased bonding cost; and $227,000 for an added 17,380 tons of clean fill.
Some of the excavation is being filled with crushed concrete from the demolished Elwha River dams, both of which were taken down during the $325 million project to restore the river to a wild state.
Now at $7.2 million
Originally bid at $3.6 million, the mill site cleanup cost has soared to $7.2 million, according to Chris Hartman, the port’s director of engineering. The amounts include 8.4 percent state sales tax.
Hartman blamed the additional work on an expanded area of polluted soil that is broader, deeper, denser and more saturated with pollutants than had been estimated.
The port expects to recoup the cost from its insurers and responsible parties but in the meantime must fund the work from its capital reserves.
The KPly site, when decontaminated, is eyed for the port’s Marine Trades Industrial Park in which port officials have said companies, who they are unwilling to name, have expressed interest.
In other action Tuesday, port commissioners accepted installation of a 40-ton heat pump at the building at 1010 W. 18th St. for $308,000 by Crescent Sheet Metal of Auburn and $27,000 in roof repairs to three buildings occupied by Angeles Composites Technology Inc. at William R. Fairchild International Airport.
They also appointed Jesse Waknitz, the port’s environmental director, as the port’s representative to the Clallam County Trust Lands Advisory Committee.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
