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Department of Ecology News Release - June 10, 2009
09-139
BELLINGHAM –Draft cleanup documents for the 64-acre Georgia-Pacific West property on the Bellingham waterfront are ready for public review.
The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) invites the public to comment from June 15 through July 15, 2009, on a draft legal agreement, called an agreed order, and draft public participation plan for the cleanup site.
Georgia-Pacific and its predecessors used the property at 300 W. Laurel St. to manufacture paper products from 1925 through 2007. The Port of Bellingham purchased the property from G-P in 2005.
Past investigations in the area found petroleum hydrocarbons, metals, dioxins, furans, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds in soils and groundwater. The portions of the property that are contaminated at levels that exceed standards under the state’s toxic cleanup law, the Model Toxics Control Act, make up the G-P West site.
When final, the legal agreement will require the Port of Bellingham to complete an environmental study of the site and analyze cleanup alternatives, with Ecology oversight.
Ecology plans to release a report on the environmental study and the analysis in 2010, and plans to start on-the-ground cleanup work in 2013.
A final agreed order is a required step toward cleaning up toxic contamination in the environment.
The G-P West site is one of 12 cleanup sites in the Bellingham Bay Demonstration Pilot. Since 1996, the pilot team, made up of federal, state, local and tribal organizations have worked to develop a collaborative approach to cleaning up toxic pollution, controlling pollution sources and restoring habitat in Bellingham Bay.
Read the documents:
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Media Contacts:
Katie J. Skipper, communications manager, 360-715-5205, cell 360-510-0682,
kski461@ecy.wa.gov
Lucy McInerney, site manager, Toxics Cleanup Program, 425-649-7272,
lpeb451@ecy.wa.gov
For more information: www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/tcp/sites/blhm_bay/sites/bel_bay_sites.html
Copyright © Washington State Department of Ecology. See http://www.ecy.wa.gov/copyright.html.
