Port acquisition marks next step in toxic cleanup on Everett waterfront

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

EVERETT — The Port of Everett voted earlier this month to accept a donation of private land adjacent to the contaminated former Jeld-Wen site — a donation port managers say will ensure environmental fallout from the site is properly managed when cleanup efforts begin, possibly by the end of 2023.

The 9.6 acres of bayside, mostly submerged land, referred to in port documents as Wicks Tide Flats, sit just north of the former Jeld-Wen property at 300 West Marine View Drive. The Oregon-based door manufacturer operated out of the Port Gardner plant since purchasing the former E.A. Nord Co. in 1986. The Everett location closed in 2005.

Along with several other portside industrial sites, the former Jeld-Wen plant has been flagged for environmental cleanup since at least the mid-2000s. State Department of Ecology investigations turned up soil and groundwater contamination dating back to the site’s use as a wood treatment plant in the 1940s, including creosote, dioxin, lead and mercury. Studies also found PCBs, highly carcinogenic compounds banned in the U.S. since 1979, in the groundwater and sediment.

The tide flats near the plant were privately owned by Wick Family Properties, LLC, and were likely historically used for log rafting and storage for the mills that once lined the waterfront. According to port documents, a representative approached the port in late 2022 requesting to donate the land, valued at $192,600, in exchange for “environmental indemnification” for the owners.

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/port-acquisition-marks-next-step-in-toxic-cleanup-on-everett-waterfront/

[KT2000]

1. I hope a citizen's group

is keeping a close eye on all of this. These "entities" have a way of sticking the taxpayers with the cleanup costs through legal actions that are tied up in the courts for years. They disupte findings and drag it out through testing. Port Angeles is going through this since 1997. At 2023, the cleanup of the contaminated mill site has now been sitting dormant for years, with Rayonier not having to do any cleanup.

Also be aware of capping. Industries used shorelines and profited from dumping their garbage into the waterways. How many of our shorelines will be capped as a solution to pollution?