City looking to help with cleanup of contaminated downtown site
Published 10:41 am Thursday, December 11, 2008
By Kevin Hanson-The Courier-Herald
A small parcel of Enumclaw property, contaminated over the years by the steady drip of petroleum products, has been targeted for cleanup.
The only thing standing in the way is money.
Sitting idle is the single lot at the northwest corner of Railroad Street and Washington Avenue. Nothing can be done with the lot as it now exists due to contamination and the owner has had no luck selling the parcel; prospective buyers flew when hearing of the condition of the soil at 1117 Washington Ave.
The city of Enumclaw has gotten involved, working with King County to identify the scope of the problem, determine what's needed to rectify the issue and, hopefully, find funding to help with the cleanup.
Representing the city in the matter is Mike Thomas, director of community development. “The county had some money available to help local jurisdictions do site assessments,” he said, adding that the money was available even if troubled sites were privately owned.
“It's a multi-tiered process,” Thomas said, that began last summer when crews bored into the ground and took soil samples for analysis.
It was determined the soil contains a variety of substances not fit for human consumption. It was noted, however, there is no risk to the public water supply, because water is drawn from an aquifer much deeper than the contamination.
The contamination stems from the lot's history as a fuel repository. According to information provided by the city, the Shell Oil Co. established a bulk oil distribution facility on the lot in 1928, using both above- and below-ground storage tanks. On site were leaded gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, kerosene and lubricating oils.
Hans Christensen purchased the property from Shell in 1970 and operated the business until 1983, when he leased it to Associated Petroleum Products of Tacoma.
Business was discontinued in the late 1980 and the last of the storage tanks was removed from the site in 1992. It was sat vacant since.
The lot caught the attention of the state in 1994 when petroleum contamination was discovered during utility work on Railroad Avenue. The site landed on the state Department of Ecology's list of undesirable sites.
To mitigate the problem, all the contaminated soil needs to be removed and hauled to dump site approved for taking tainted dirt.
As part of the process now under way, Thomas said, the county will help Enumclaw identify potential grants to help pay for the cleanup. As expected, “that's a much tougher thing to do,” Thomas said.
Kevin Hanson can be reached at khanson@cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/courierherald.
