New spots in Everett, Granite Falls on state cleanup list

Published 10:59 pm Monday, September 7, 2009

EVERETT — As the job of cleaning up one polluted site on the Everett waterfront is declared done, work is being planned on another.

The site of an early 20th century power plant at the foot of Bond Street is now considered clean by the state after the city of Everett dug out 5,500 tons of tainted dirt last summer.

Likewise, the Brashler Industrial Park in Marysville has been declared clean and removed from the list.

Officially joining the state’s hazardous waste sites list is the Ameron-Hulbert site, which includes the Collins Building between 11th and 13th streets on W. Marine View Drive.

One other Snohomish County site, a former gas station in Granite Falls, is also on the list.

The Department of Ecology put the Ameron-Hulbert site at the top of its priority list, spokesman Seth Preston said.

The pollution there “has the potential of getting into the waterway and doing long-term damage to the environment,” he said.

The Port of Everett has already spent about $7 million cleaning up part of the Ameron site and most of an adjoining parcel, spokeswoman Lisa Lefeber said. The port estimates it will cost another $7 million to clean up the remainder of the Ameron-Hulbert site.

The port is receiving about $3.4 million from the state for the Ameron cleanup under the Puget Sound Initiative, a state program with the goal of cleaning Puget Sound by 2020.

The William Hulbert Mill Co. owned most of the Ameron site from about 1920 until 1991, running sawmill operations until about 1960, according to DOE.

In the early ’70s, Hulbert leased part of the site to Centrecon, which made concrete poles and pilings. Utility Vault Co. purchased Centrecon in the late ’70s. In 1988, Ameron bought some of that company’s properties and makes concrete poles at the site.

Carcinogenic hydrocarbons, PCBs, metals and other chemicals have been found in the soil, groundwater and sediments on the property. The pollution is not considered a risk to people working on the site, Preston said.

A deadline of 2014 has been set for the cleanup to be completed. Ameron has a lease through 2012, Lefeber said. The port is planning to build a new state-of-the-art boatyard on the property.

“We can’t do anything else with the rest of the site until the leases are expired and the property’s cleaned up,” she said.

It’s not certain when the remainder of the cleanup will begin.

The Bond Street-Kromer Avenue site was home to the Everett Electric and Railway power plant from 1902 until the mid-1950s. Hydrocarbons, a petroleum byproduct, were found on the 1.5-acre site near the foot of Forgotten Creek.

The city of Everett spent $660,000 to voluntarily clean up the property. The city plans to build a $24 million combined sewer overflow facility on the site, where sewage and rainwater runoff would be routed when the system becomes overwhelmed during storms.

The other two Snohomish County cleanup sites: