PORT ANGELES — Shoreline-area sediment too polluted for open-water disposal, as had been planned by the Port of Port Angeles, will be used instead as fill material for the port’s Marine Industrial Park.
The change in fate for the sediment could cause a “significant cost overrun” for the Port’s Terminal 3 dredging project, which had been budgeted for $1.1 million and could “go upward of $1.5 million,” if it’s too polluted for upland disposal, port Director of Engineering Chris Hartman said Tuesday.
Plans had been to deposit it at Port Gamble, but the sediment tested by the state Department of Ecology was too polluted to be deposited in open waters, so it will be transported to the nearby industrial park, he said.
It will be tested for pollutants at the Marine Drive site, and if it exceeds standards for uplands that are less stringent the those for open waters will be trucked to a dump site, likely the Roosevelt Regional Landfill in Eastern Washington, he said.
Hartman told commissioners at their regular Tuesday meeting that the cost of the dredging project could increase by about 50 percent if 20 percent of the fill must be trucked away, an estimate he said was conservative.
“It’s sad to see that project increased by 50 percent,” Commissioner Connie Beauvais said.
An estimate of 3,060 cubic yards of sediment could be transported to the landfill, a fifth of the 15,300 yards that will be dredged, Hartman said.
In a later interview, he further assessed the chance that material would have to be trucked off the site.
“The most likely scenario is that no material gets hauled off,” he said.
“We think a conservative planning scenario is that it’s all the way up to 20 percent.
“We want to make sure we’re prepared for this.”
The sediment was analyzed in core samples at the terminal, an export dock where private companies take on debarked logs.
Their skippers are concerned about touching bottom during low tide.
“If the berth is not dredged, bulk cargo vessels will stop taking cargo from Port Angeles,” Hartman predicted.
The sediment contains polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, furans “and a whole host of metals,” Hartman said in an interview.
Hartman’s two reports on the dredging project are available at www.tinyurl.com/PDN-PortDredging.
Beauvais and port commissioners Steven Burke and Colleen McAleer authorized a contract amendment for the project and approved advertising for bids.
The amendment increases the amount the port is paying the Seattle-based Floyd-Snider consulting firm for construction oversite, analytical testing and production of a permitting outline and project schedule, by $115,000, to $422,000.
Commissioners advertised for bids without an estimate for the total cost of the project.
“That won’t be known until after the material has been dredged, stockpiled on-site and tested,” Hartman said in a report, adding it “may be well beyond the $1 million amount included in the 2020 capital budget.”
Dredging will begin in July and be “substantially complete” by Sept. 4, Hartman said.
Every 500 yards that are deposited at the industrial park will be tested for pollutants, Hartman said.
Harbor-floor depth at the terminal will be dug to 45 feet.
The material will be piled in the southeastern corner of the 18-acre Marine Drive site — where forester Grant Munro had his log yard — on the western edge of downtown Port Angeles and covered in plastic.
The material will be spread over a depressed area at the industrial park in 2021.
“The reason this site was the only solution was because the footprint of the dredging project is within an active cleanup site (Western Port Angeles Harbor) and significant liability would be tied to that material if placed on another property,” Hartman said in a report.
“Fortunately for the port, the KPly site was a previous cleanup site and so has the necessary monitoring wells and restrictive covenants already in place.”
The total amount that will be dredged also increased from 13,000 cubic yards, adding $80,000 to the contract.
Last dredged in 1978, Terminal 3 has seen little activity in recent months as logging activity has plummeted, port officials say.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
