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Central Waterfront

SITE DESCRIPTION

The Central Waterfront site (Site) is approximately 55 acres in size and is located on Bellingham’s downtown waterfront. The Site is currently owned primarily by the Port of Bellingham (Port) and the City of Bellingham (City), and has historically been used to support a variety of industrial activities including a municipal and wood waste landfill, boat yards, foundry activity, bulk petroleum storage, and pulp and paper mill product storage. Previous environmental investigations of the Site indicate the presence of hazardous substances in groundwater, surface water, soil and/or sediments above state cleanup standards. As a result, the Site is subject to the investigation and cleanup requirements of the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) administered by Ecology. The primary contaminants of concern are solid waste, landfill gases, metals, and petroleum related compounds.

This Site is one of several cleanup sites being addressed as part of the Bellingham Bay Demonstration Pilot; a bay-wide, multi-agency initiative integrating sediment cleanup, control of pollution sources, habitat restoration and aquatic/shoreline land use.

The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology), the Port, and the City have negotiated a draft legal agreement (called an agreed order) to perform an environmental study (called a remedial investigation/feasibility study) at the Site. The agreed order outlines the work to be performed and ensures that the site investigation and cleanup activities are conducted in a timely fashion in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations. In addition to negotiating a draft agreed order with the Port and the City, Ecology has developed a draft public participation plan outlining opportunities throughout the process for the public to provide input.

The draft agreed order documents are available for public review and comment through June 18, 2006. For more information on this site please contact Sunny Becker, Site Manager, at Ecology’s WA State NW Regional Office, 3190 160th Avenue SE, Bellevue, WA, 98008-5452 or by email at hlin461@ecy.wa.gov.

Site Documents

• Responsiveness Summary

• Agreed Order Documents
• Fact Sheet
• Agreed Order
• Public Participation Plan

Related Information

• Watershed Information for WRIA 01

Additional Resources

• Acronyms used by the Toxic Cleanup Program
• Cleanup Process: Major Steps & Definitions
• Data Submittal Requirements for All Cleanup Sites
• Facility/Site Atlas
• Toxics Cleanup publications