PORT ANGELES — A senior staff member with the state Department of Ecology told a crowd of about 60 Wednesday that the environmental cleanup of Rayonier’s former mill site is a priority, but at the same time she couldn’t provide a guess as to when the project that has gone on for 10 years will come to an end.
“It is really, really difficult to say, and I would be speculating,” Rebecca Lawson, regional manager for Ecology’s Toxics Cleanup Program, said after a presentation on the state agency’s new cleanup agreement with Rayonier.
“Three-plus years,” she hesitantly added, which prompted laughter from the crowd since the new agreement calls for a three-year timeline for a cleanup plan to be developed.
The humor wasn’t lost on Lawson.
The meeting was held at the Port Angeles Senior Center as part of Ecology’s public participation process.
Ecology staff members told the crowd that the agreement, known as an agreed order, is intended to remove hurdles that have delayed the cleanup of the 75-acre waterfront property.
But that alone could not satisfy many of those who posed questions to the staff members during their question-and-answer period. Many expressed frustration over previous delays with the cleanup and asked for proof that delays won’t continue to hinder the project.
Lawson said it can never be promised that deadlines won’t slip but added that Ecology will not allow a cleanup schedule to be pushed back further unless Rayonier can provide a good reason to need more time.
Frustrations shared
“Believe me, we share your frustrations,” she said.
Lawson told the crowd that Ecology has a “commitment from Rayonier” to finish the cleanup.
The agreement, which Ecology is expected to sign when the public comment period ends March 5, was a goal of Lawson’s staff since the Toxics Cleanup Program took over management of the cleanup site from the state agency’s solid waste division in November 2007.
Lawson said it will help expedite cleanup by: defining a “study area,” which includes the area where Ecology and Rayonier agree cleanup will occur; combining the agreed orders for the marine and upland portions of the site; setting enforceable deadlines for the company to fill in “data gaps” with previous studies; and complete other work such as a cleanup plan for the study area.
The timeline for all of that work is three years.
“We’re not starting over,” she said. “We’re building on a lot of work that has been done.”
Lawson also told those in attendance that the agreement does not prohibit the Port Angeles Harbor-Works Development Authority from acquiring the property, as the city created it to do, or the city from acquiring a large tank on the property to resolve its sewage overflows as mandated by Ecology through its water quality division.
She also said the water quality and toxics cleanup divisions will work closer together to ensure that those two separate goals SEmD cleanup and eliminating sewage overflows SEmD do not hinder each other.
The project site
The study area encompasses 1,400 acres.
It is made up of the 75-acre former mill property and 1,325 acres of harbor sediment.
During the 68 years the mill operated, it discharged industrial chemicals through outfall pipes into Port Angeles Harbor as well as pollutants into the air.
Rayonier began to treat the discharge in the 1970s.
The mill closed in 1997 and became an Ecology cleanup site in 2000.
To date, Rayonier has removed 25,000 tons of contaminated soil, but pockets of contaminants, such as petroleum, metals, PCBs, dioxins and pesticides, remain on the property.
Ecology conducted a harbor sediment study in summer 2008 but its results aren’t expected to be ready until this spring or summer.
Ecology says the extent of the cleanup site remains undefined because it has not finished its assessment of how extensively contaminants were distributed in the Port Angeles area.
It will use the harbor study and an “off-site soil dioxin” study to determine if Rayonier should be committed to any cleanup outside of the study area.
The samples for the soil study was taken around the Port Angeles area in fall 2008.
Results released in February 2009 showed areas where dioxin, which also can occur naturally, exceeded cleanup levels of 11 parts per trillion.
Ecology is waiting on an analysis to determine if Rayonier can be blamed for any of the samples that came in above cleanup levels. That analysis is also expected to be complete this spring or summer.
The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe is a partner in the cleanup project, and the property is the known site of a former Klallam village as well as the Puget Sound Cooperative Colony.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
