The Washington state Department of Ecology held a public hearing Wednesday night about a future clean-up of the former Grays Harbor Paper LP site, in Hoquiam.
The hearing for the draft cleanup, which was well-attended on Wednesday, was also well-received. The small team who was there for Ecology impressed Lee First, who works at Twin Harbors Waterkeeper. People who did not attend the public hearing can comment up until 11:59 p.m. on Thursday. They can go through through the Ecology website at: https://swm.ecology.commentinput.com/?id=M4FhWTpsr.
The site in question is 801 23rd St., in Hoquiam. It’s just north of Rennie Island. It operated as a pump and-or paper mill from the 1920s to 2013, according to Ecology.
“The site is currently not operating,” Ecology stated. “Industrial practices and historical land use by the mill owners and operators has resulted in contamination at the site.”
Ecology lays out reasons why such a cleanup would make a difference.
“Historical independent investigations conducted by previous site owners and operators have detected the following contaminants in soil or groundwater at the site,” Ecology states.
The contaminants are as follows:
• Petroleum hydrocarbons from diesel, gasoline and oil
• Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
• Polychlorinated biphenyls
• Metals including lead, chromium and mercury
• Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene
• Volatile organic compounds
“At certain concentrations, these pollutants can pose a threat to human health and the environment,” Ecology states. “The draft cleanup agreed order begins the cleanup process under the Model Toxics Control Act, (which is) Washington state’s cleanup law.”
The proposed actions for the draft cleanup agreed order, according to Ecology, “requires Rayonier A.M. Properties LLC., to investigate contamination at the site, evaluate options for cleanup, and develop a draft plan to clean up the contamination.”
The public participation plan, which was discussed Wednesday night, describes how Ecology will engage with the public during the cleanup process.
First sounded like she approved of how the team of Ecology representatives handled the public hearing, as well as how engaged the other people — not with Ecology — were.
“I thought it was great,” First said. “I was really pleased with the turnout. I thought the questions were amazing. I’ve been to maybe 10 of these kind of hearings because I’ve been involved in cleaning up toxic sites, mostly in Bellingham. I was really happy to see, I think there were 16 people (here). I think it was great. I know I’ve said this like five times but I was really impressed with the questions.”
While this isn’t something that will happen immediately, First said she was really impressed that it is happening.
“There are so many toxic sites here,” First said. “This is a really important first step.”
Contact Reporter Matthew N. Wells at matthew.wells@thedailyworld.com.
