The old Kimberly-Clark mill is a minds-eye outline, all dust and grit.
For decades, 66 acres of Everett’s central waterfront marked the intersection of industry and labor. Seven hundred living-wage jobs fell away as the last smokestack in the City of Smokestacks shuttered in 2012.
Whatever springs from the ashes will shape Everett’s economic and cultural landscape for the rest of the century.
The mill’s post-demolition future was brought into focus May 29 when Everett City Councilmember Brenda Stonecipher announced the discovery of significantly higher on-site levels of arsenic, cadmium and other heavy metals. The information, confirmed by the city attorney and Department of Ecology, revealed differing takes on the council’s Oct. 10, 2012, meeting when zoning options and anticipated outcomes were debated.
Earlier this year, and unrelated to the latest discovery, the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency told K-C to add two water trucks to control excessive dust. According to an Association of General Contractors pamphlet, the evocatively named “fugitive dust” can be dangerous if inhaled in large amounts.
Bryan Lust, K-C’s demolition site manager, spoke before the council Wednesday. “I’d like to remind everyone that while Kimberly-Clark aspired to clean up the site to unrestricted status, we always said it would depend on site conditions revealed by data gathered during the remedial investigation,” he said. “We understood and stated that it might only be possible to attain industrial-use standards. Standards which are no less protective of the environment.”
Lust is right that an industrial standard won’t imperil the environment. The concern is using “aspire” in the past tense and the supposition that K-C will be off the hook if a new owner is OK with industrial-use only. Will K-C record restrictions in its new-owner covenant to limit liability?
Stonecipher and Councilmember Paul Roberts also fear that the company might skimp and market only to industrial users. The industrial designation precludes options that the public support, including a comprehensive clean-up and public access.
A K-C spokesman said not so fast on the latter. There are examples, such as Seattle’s Gas Works Park, where access is built over contaminated land that exceeds the unrestricted level.
Enter Jay Manning, the redoubtable former DOE chief who recently contracted with the city. His participation ameliorated concern that the community might get railroaded.
“Ecology will ultimately decide what the cleanup standard is,” Manning said. “Not Kimberly-Clark, not the potential buyer.”
Stonecipher, along with Roberts, merits a big hat tip. Stonecipher exhibited judgment and political courage flagging the contamination data. She sought out DOE confirmation, bird-dogged the city and let the community know what was going on. It’s a genuine public service, and there is time in the post-demolition process to make it right.
On the bank above the K-C site, a latticework of streets honor industrial barons like John D. Rockefeller who invested in Everett and promptly turned tail. With a Fortune 500 company like K-C, it’s verify, verify. Or else.
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