Around the Sound: Wrapup of big Anacortes project worth celebrating

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Toxics Cleanup Program

Work is finished on the largest cleanup project yet tackled under the Puget Sound Initiative.

That’s the $34 million cleanup of the former Scott Paper mill site on the Anacortes waterfront on the shore of Fidalgo Bay.

The Port of Anacortes currently owns part of the site. The port and Kimberly-Clark Corp., which purchased Scott Paper and was liable for helping to clean up the overall site, worked with Ecology to get the work done.

Here’s part of a Skagit Valley Herald article about the project. (The full article is only available to the newspaper’s subscribers.)

The article mentions a May 20 celebration of the project’s completion, which is planned on the portion of the site known as Seafarers’ Memorial Park. Here’s a Port of Anacortes notice about the event.

You can read some more background about the site and the cleanup in this Ecology news release from June 2009 announcing the start of the project.

The Puget Sound Initiative is an effort by local, tribal, state and federal governments, business, agricultural and environmental communities, scientists, and the public to restore and protect the health of the Sound. Ecology is working on dozens of sites around the Sound under this effort, including focusing on several bays that include several sites:

• Fidalgo/Padilla bays in Skagit County (including the Scott Paper site).
  
• Port Gardner Bay at Everett.
  
• Port Angeles Harbor.
  
• Budd Inlet at Olympia.
  
• Oakland Bay in Mason County.
  
• Port Gamble Bay on the Kitsap Peninsula.
  
• Dumas Bay in King County.

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