EDMONDS — With the Brightwater sewage treatment plant probably going elsewhere, it looks like part of the former Unocal site here will be cleaned up enough for residential construction to start next month.
Three weeks ago, the dump trucks – six a day – began hauling chunks of oil-spattered asphalt and arsenic-tainted soil from the site.
Despite controversy over Brightwater, the environmental cleanup of the former tank farm begun last year continues unabated.
Edmonds’ plans to build a public transportation hub in the lower yard and zone the upper yard for residential housing have proceeded in spite of the specter of Brightwater, King County’s planned third wastewater treatment plant.
Triad Development, a Seattle developer, recently signed a contract with Unocal to purchase the 23-acre upper yard, said Mark Brearley, Unocal’s senior geologist. The upper yard will be ready for residential use this fall, he said.
But the sale is contingent on the $1.3 billion Brightwater plant being built somewhere else. And it looks like that will happen.
King County Executive Ron Sims picked the other finalist site near Highway 9 north of Woodinville earlier this week. But that decision could change once environmental impact studies are done. The final decision won’t be made until spring.
“In the event of condemnation, they (Triad) can pull out,” Brearley said.
Triad has been involved in large-scale housing projects before. In 1990, it built Coverington Farms, a 352-unit apartment complex in south Everett.
Sims’ announcement was good news for Edmonds. Since 1993, city officials have worked with the state Department of Transportation on the Edmonds Crossing project, which would turn the tank farm’s lower yard into a regional transportation hub providing one-stop ferry, passenger train and bus service. “We haven’t let the Edmonds Crossing Project sit while this has gone on,” Edmonds Mayor Gary Haakenson said, referring to Brightwater battle. “No matter what happens with Brightwater, we’re continuing to move forward on the Crossing project.”
To step up the pace, the Edmonds City Council on July 23 approved a change in the site’s zoning from waterfront commercial to mixed-use, which allows retail, residential and commercial use.
Last summer, 23 empty petroleum storage tanks that dotted the hillside were demolished.
The cleanup of the upper yard continues. By the end of September, more than 700 truckloads of soil will have been removed from the hillside, where the 4 million-gallon capacity fuel tanks once stood.
Bulldozers will strip the site of the top 6 inches of soil to decrease the arsenic concentration from 1,000 parts per million to 20 parts per million, a figure considered safe for residential development by state Department of Ecology standards.
But until Sims makes his final decision next May, it’s still a waiting game, Brearley said.
“We’ll continue to prepare for Brightwater,” he said.
Unocal closed the tank farm in 1991 after more than 60 years of use. During that time, petroleum and fuel spills occurred in the course of normal operations.
The more heavily polluted lower yard received a preliminary cleanup last year. More than 12,000 tons of contaminated soil and 2,500 gallons of underground oil were removed from the lower yard. But the process is far from complete.
Cleanup of the lower yard will resume in 2004, after Unocal has completed a detailed plan outlining its cleanup strategy and released the report to the Ecology Department and the public.
Janice Podsada is a reporter for the Herald in Everett.
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