EVERETT — The owners of a key piece of industrial property in Everett are hoping to get a new tenant soon.
But first, they will have to clean up the mess left behind by the previous tenant.
The 7.7-acre industrial lot at 101 E Marine View Drive, just below the Highway 529 bridge over the Snohomish River, was the site of Busy Beaver Recycling, a company that recycled a wide variety of materials, including some things not normally considered recyclable, such as polystyrene foam.
Busy Beaver, however, was forced to shut down last year after running afoul of many Snohomish Health District regulations. These included operating without a permit, improper storage of materials and failing to abide by a plan of operations and subsequent voluntary corrections agreements with the district.
The health district sued Busy Beaver in February 2014, and by September had won court decisions forcing the company to halt all business activity on the site and to pay out about $12,000 in fines. The district had to go to Busy Beaver’s bank, Heritage Bank, with a garnishment order to receive payment.
“Things really came to light when we found out they no longer had a permit to operate, which put them in violation of their lease immediately,” said Cory Burke, who manages the company that owns the property, Blunt Family LLC.
Blunt Family LLC is a holding company for the assets of local business executives and civic boosters Kim and Sharon Bargreen Blunt, who died in 2010 and 2008, respectively.
The family evicted Busy Beaver in late 2014, but the recycler left a mess behind, including garbage and recyclable material stacked both indoors and outdoors on the site.
“In their haste to get out, they commingled everything,” Burke said.
He said the company also damaged the 95,175-square-foot warehouse building during its move.
The family brought in workers to repair the building and begin the process of cleaning up, recycling what can be reused and taking garbage to the dump.
They’ve been at it two months, and Burke said it may be another six to eight weeks before the cleanup is complete.
The site is still stacked with the leftovers of the Busy Beaver operation, including quantities of a variety of plastic, wood and a large pile of asphalt shingles out in the yard. The shingles were one of the issues the health district cited because of the potential for the chemicals in the shingles to leach into the groundwater.
“That’s what the owner is dealing with, the remaining material that was just left there when Busy Beaver ceased operations,” said Kevin Plemel, the environmental division director of the Snohomish Health District.
The exposed trash is now covered by tarps to keep the rain off it while the cleanup is still under way.
Plemel said the enforcement action taken against Busy Beaver was unusual, because the district prefers to get voluntary compliance out of code violators and avoid lawsuits if necessary.
“It’s expensive and time consuming,” Plemel said, referring to the seven-month suit that shut down Busy Beaver. “Generally, our first goal is to settle things administratively.”
The health district has been working closely with the Blunt Family on the cleanup, Plemel said, so that if the family were to lease the site to another tenant, that tenant will be able to get started on the necessary permits early, and not find itself struggling to deal with compliance after the fact.
Burke said he’s been meeting with commercial agents to find out what kind of market would exist for leasing or possibly even selling the lot.
He said he doesn’t have a specific tenant lined up yet, and is not sure who might step forward to rent the property.
“It does lend itself to a recycling facility or something like that, though,” Burke said.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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