State places three local areas on Hazardous Site List
Thursday, September 4, 2008 11:07 AM PDT
By Barbara LaBoe
Printable version
E-mail this articleThree Southwest Washington sites have been added to the state’s Hazardous Site List, the Department of Ecology announced Wednesday.
The list, updated twice a year, compiles the contaminated or toxic sites in Washington that must be cleaned. The list grows as more sites are investigated and determined to meet the state’s standards for cleanup. The sites are ranked based on the degree of risk they pose to people and environment. Sites are then cleaned based on the rankings as well as negotiations with the property owners. A ranking of 1 is the highest concern, a 5 is the lowest.
Sites in Cowlitz, Lewis and Pacific counties were added in the recent list.
In Cowlitz County, groundwater below the Weyerhaeuser Co. Headquarters Camp site east of Castle Rock was contaminated with carbon tetrachloride and chloroform, according to the state’s site hazard assessment report. Carbon tetrachloride was used in fire extinguishers and as a motor degreaser until the 1960s. The state’s report does not specify what caused the chloroform contamination. The contamination was discovered in 1993.
According to the state’s report, despite numerous requests a Weyerhaeuser representative has not provided information used to make a through assessment before the report was completed. Instead, the state used the levels from the preliminary report in 1994 to give the site a level 3 ranking.
A spokesman for Weyerhaeuser did not immediately return messages Wednesday.
In Lewis County, a piece of Vader residential property, 901 S. Main St., was first investigated in 2003 when a meth lab was discovered. During that cleanup, tests revealed methylene chloride in the soil unrelated to the meth lab, according to the state report. The owner, who lives out of state, says a neighbor saw an asphalt contractor using a solvent to clean equipment that was parked on the property. State officials do not yet know if that’s the cause of the contamination. The Vader site received a level 4 ranking.
In Pacific County, one site was removed from the list while another was added.
Old, underground gasoline storage tanks at the Oysterville Store leaked into the ground in the 1970s and 1980s. Contamination was discovered when the tanks were removed earlier this year, according to the state report. This site has a level 4 ranking.
The U.S. Coast Guard station at Cape Disappointment in Ilwaco was removed as needing no further cleanup.
Those responsible for polluting a site are responsible for all cleanup costs. The state pays for cleanup only if no liable person can be identified or if an identified person can’t afford the costs.
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