PORT ANGELES — It will take up to another three years for a state-approved cleanup plan for Rayonier Inc.’s former pulp mill site on the waterfront to be drafted.
That’s the amount of time the state Department of Ecology is giving Rayonier to complete its environmental assessment of the 75-acre property at the end of Ennis Street in Port Angeles and nearby harbor sediment and to propose a cleanup plan.
The timeline is part of an agreement that the company signed Friday, said Rebecca Lawson, Ecology regional toxics cleanup manager.
“I think we’re as comfortable as we can be,” Charles Hood, Rayonier corporate affairs vice president, said about the agreement Friday.
“Our interest all along has been trying to move this process along.”
Pockets of PCBs, dioxin, arsenic and other toxins were found on the site after it closed in 1997 after 68 years of pulp mill operation. It has been an Ecology cleanup project since 2000.
Ecology officials are expected to sign the agreement, known as an “agreed order,” after a 30-day public comment period from Feb. 1 to March 5.
Timeline, study area
Along with setting the new timeline, the agreement sets the boundaries of a “study area,” which is where Ecology and Rayonier agree environmental contamination from the mill occurred and needs to be cleaned up.
That’s the first time such an agreement has been made since the state agency took control of the cleanup project 10 years ago.
Hood said the company is committed to cleaning up “its fair share of the contamination” within the area, which includes the property and a portion of Port Angeles Harbor.
The three-year study period is longer than the two years Ecology staff had in mind in 2009 for the already long drawn-out cleanup project.
Nonetheless, Lawson said the agreement will resolve the problems that have delayed cleanup of the site since the Environmental Protection Agency agreed to hand over the project to Ecology on Feb. 1, 2000.
“I think it’s really going to end up in having the property cleaned up before too long,” she said.
Lawson identified those problems as not having an agreed upon area where cleanup will occur, which the study area is supposed to resolve, and requiring Rayonier to fill in “data gaps” with previous studies and send Ecology monthly progress reports.
These were goals of hers, she said, when the project was transferred from Ecology’s solid waste division to under her supervision with the toxics cleanup division in November 2007.
“When it came to my section, we really tried to look at what’s been holding this up and try to see if we can develop a different strategy to get this done,” Lawson said.
Lawson said it’s “not surprising” that completing the environmental assessment of the study area and creating a cleanup plan will take three more years rather than two.
“The long story short,” she said,” is we really penciled out how long it will take for their consultants to prepare deliverables, for us to meet with Rayonier, to put comments together. That’s how long it turned out.”
Lawson said Ecology and Rayonier negotiated the study area’s boundaries in the harbor based on where the mill’s outfall pipes are located, where wood waste was left and where contaminates likely leached into the harbor through ground water.
No date for cleanup completion
While the document does require Rayonier to complete its environmental assessment of the study area within three years, and then develop a cleanup plan, Ecology cannot estimate when the project will be fully completed.
That’s because the entire extent of the cleanup site has yet to be defined, and it is not known how extensive cleanup will need to be, Lawson said.
Ecology’s solid waste division originally estimated cleanup would be done in 2004.
Some cleanup work has already been done. Through previous agreements with Ecology, Rayonier has removed contaminated soil around former fuel tanks, the machine shop and finishing room.
How extensive the final cleanup boundaries will be depends on two studies, one in the harbor and another of soil in and around Port Angeles.
Both were done in 2008 and were initially scheduled to be completed last spring. Lawson said they should be done by summer.
She attributed the delays to a needed expert not being immediately available, and negotiations surrounding some cost overruns with the company contracted to take and analyze the samples.
The results of those studies will help Ecology trace contaminates emitted from Rayonier’s mill, and other polluters who may become liable for cleaning up the harbor.
Only the harbor study will be needed to meet the three-year deadline, Lawson said, since samples were taken from the study area as well as the rest of the harbor.
She said the delays with that study won’t affect the new timeline.
The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, which is a partner in the cleanup project, gave its approval to the new agreement.
Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles said she is concerned about the extended timeline but approves of the document since it should get the project closer to the finish line.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
