PORT ANGELES — A Port Angeles resident’s claim is “completely false” that log-yard operator Merrill &Ring has been spilling 50 gallons of hydraulic oil on the ground and into the stormwater system on a daily basis at its log yard at William R. Fairchild International Airport, John Nutter, port director of finance, said this week.
But recent tests showed there was evidence of a diesel fuel spill five times greater than the level allowed by the state Model Toxics Control Act that the company will have to address, Nutter said Monday.
“If it was a major spill, it would have gotten a much higher reading,” Nutter said.
Nutter said that it was not known how much fuel had spilled, but that how it would be cleaned up would be determined in the coming weeks.
David Bennett, state Department of Ecology southwest region spokesman, said a person from the agency took site samples from the log yard Tuesday that will be examined over the next few weeks for the presence of oil.
“We are sort of going with what the [port] initially determined, that there was no sign of oil,” he said Tuesday.
Riley Fogarty of Port Angeles, Merrill &Ring’s regional manager, said Monday he is pleased with the port’s test results but not surprised.
“If there is anything that does get our responsibility to clean up, we would clean it up instantaneously.”
The claim about the hydraulic fluid was made in complaints by Port Angeles resident Steve Reinhart to the port and the state Department of Ecology, Nutter said.
Reinhart, who lives near the log yard, had said in his complaint that a log debarker had been losing hydraulic oil daily for more than three years, according to the state Department of Ecology.
The equipment is on the approximately 12-acre site Merrill &Ring leases from the port on Airport Road.
“The reporting party Steve Reinhart stated that he observed a sheen on a nearby creek called the Dry Creek Water System on 1/31/2017 at approximately 1000 hrs.,” Ecology said in a report on the complaint.
Reinhart had claimed that Merrill &Ring’s debarker “takes on 50 gallons of hydraulic oil every day and that it spills to the ground underneath the debarker,” according to Ecology’s report.
“He heard this third hand,” the report said.
Spectra Laboratories of Tacoma conducted tests on samples drawn from the property and stormwater drainage system to review Reinhart’s allegation, Nutter said.
“The absolute lowest reading was the sample taken closest to the debarking equipment that uses hydraulic fluid,” Nutter said Monday in an email.
“This indicated there had not been a leak from the debarker.”
Spectra took 20 samples to determine the existence of leaks or spillage.
“On-site inspections of the equipment found no leaks of any kind, the concrete foundation the equipment sits on had no sign of any leaks, and a chemical analysis of soil and water around the log yard found expected low levels of lubricating oils, but no hydraulic fluid,” Nutter said in the email.
“The airport log yard has been an industrial site for many years, and given the heavy equipment in use and the thousands of log trucks that transit the log yard every month, some level of residual oil is expected.”
The tests will cost the port about $3,000, Nutter estimated.
Port officials also reviewed suspicions concerning a mysterious mushy substance in stormwater drainage ditches that port officials began delving into at the beginning of February.
The odorless, fibrous material turned out to be an organic mix of decomposing wood and wood resins, Nutter said, confirming preliminary indications Nutter made in an earlier interview with the Peninsula Daily News.
“There was really nothing there to test,” Nutter said. “It was organic.”
Reinhart responded to the report Monday by email.
“After being informed that there was an oily flow of sludge coming from Merrill Ring’s leased property I went over there and saw what some others had photographed a few days earlier, and it certainly did not look like cardboard!” Reinhart said in the email.
“Also upon further reconsideration, I was not a third party recipient of this information, not even the fourth!
“I received this information fifth hand!”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
Stacked logs populate a log yard operated by Merrill & Ring on property owned by the Port of Port Angeles near William R. Fairchild International Airport. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
