West Bay cleanup to grow

Public can view work planned for Solid Wood Inc. site

By John Dodge | The Olympian • Published November 20, 2008

Comments (0)

OLYMPIA – The first phase of Olympia's West Bay Park won't be open to the public until late 2009 at the earliest, city park officials said Wednesday.

How to comment

The public has until Dec. 24 to comment on a new order and work plan to investigate and clean up contamination at city property slated for park development at the former Solid Wood Inc. site on West Bay Drive in Olympia.

Comments and technical questions should be directed to state Department of Ecology site manager Steve Teel at 360-407-6247 or stee461@ecy.wa.gov.

Review the order and work plan by clicking the link with this story at www.theolympian.com/southsound or at the city Parks, Arts and Recreation Department, 222 Columbia St. N.W., Olympia.

Cleanup of the former Solid Wood Inc. industrial site has yet to begin and is about to expand under a revised order between the city and the state Department of Ecology.

The revised order and work plan out for public review through Dec. 24 now includes removal of 277 wood pilings in the tidelands, sampling of the marine sediments for petroleum pollution and sampling of five groundwater seeps in the 4.3 acres east of West Bay Drive between Garfield Trail and Bowman Avenue, Ecology project manager Steve Teel said.

This is in addition to four sites previously identified that must be capped or excavated to contain, remove or treat soil and groundwater contaminated with petroleum by-products, cancer-causing hydrocarbons and heavy metals.

Public access

The entire site is 16.4 acres, but only the first phase would be opened to the public initially under this cleanup plan.

The best-case scenario would be for the upland and beach areas of the park to open late next year, including a launch and haul-out site for canoes and kayaks, said Julie McQuarry, project coordinator for city parks.

Under the worst-case scenario, sediment around the removed pilings would require capping or excavation, which would further delay access to the beach.

The city still hopes to receive a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit to restore the shoreline habitat and conduct the in-water cleanup in time to do the work next summer, McQuarry said.

The city park site, purchased for $5 million from the Port of Olympia and BNSF Railway, is one of eight lower Budd Inlet sites targeted for hazardous waste probes and cleanups as part of the Puget Sound Initiative, an attempt to restore the health of Puget Sound by 2020.

John Dodge can be reached at 360-754-5444 or jdodge@theolympian.com.