Cleaning up: Bellingham community active in Waterfront cleanup outreach

Cleaning up Central Waterfront site is transforming Bellingham Bay

Stroll along the Bellingham waterfront today and you’ll see changes – a new public park with an award-winning restored beach, a restored Granary Building, and a new downtown city block complete with new roads, sidewalks, and bike paths.

All of these changes were made possible by first addressing contamination from a history of industrial activity. 

Contamination cleanup work continues at multiple sites along the Bellingham waterfront, which will foster more changes over the coming years. One of those sites is the Central Waterfront site.

An aerial view of Central Waterfront site

Center of it all

The Central Waterfront site is located on the waterfront between two waterways. Four other Ecology cleanup sites are in the area: two in-water sediment sites (Whatcom Waterway and I & J Waterway) and two upland sites (Georgia-Pacific West and the Holly Street Landfill).

“Win-Win” outreach partnerships

RE Sources for Sustainable Communities hosted a walking tour of the Central Waterfront site on July 10. They shared information about cleanup activities and connected the community with agency staff managing the cleanup efforts. On this rainy, overcast July weekday, about 40 curious folks joined RE Sources, Ecology, the Port of Bellingham, and City of Bellingham as we all toured the site. We saw the working waterfront in action, learned of previous cleanup work, and discussed planned cleanup work.

We award Public Participation Grants to individuals and nonprofit organizations like RE Sources who do outreach about contaminated sites. They received a grant starting July 1 and hit the ground running just days later with a Central Waterfront site tour. Opportunities like this enable the community to see a cleanup site in person while having conversations with the people managing a cleanup. It’s a “win-win” – for us, other agencies and organizations, and most importantly for the community.

Our Public Participation Grants allow communities groups to do outreach,
like providing tours of cleanup sites on Bellingham Bay.

Future generations

We were lucky to have many youth join in the tour conversation. It served as a perfect reminder of why we do such cleanups, for current AND future generations.

Our youngest tour members innocently asked how they could help clean up the site while we walked. A great reminder to keep an eye out for litter while we work to address the chemical contamination.

A middle school group studying environmental and social justice in their summer program also attended the tour and learned how cleanups involve an entire community.

Public participation

Washington’s environmental cleanup law, the Model Toxics Control Action (MTCA), began as a public-initiated law and it turns 30 this year. Many steps of the MTCA cleanup process involve public participation. Your comments help inform Ecology’s management decisions.

Ecology invites you to review and comment on a draft Cleanup Action Plan and associated documents for the Central Waterfront site. The plan calls for a combination of removing and capping contaminated soil, monitoring conditions, and restricting uses.

During our first 30-day comment period, we received several requests for a public meeting, so we’ve scheduled a meeting for 6-8 p.m. on September 18 at  Bellingham Technology Development Center, 1000 F St., Bellingham. See this map for directions. 

You can submit comments online during our second 30-day comment period from September 16 – October 15, 2019.

Cleanup site information

• Fact sheet (pdf)
• Website
• Cleanup Action Plan

By Ian Fawley, Community Outreach and Environmental Education Specialist, Toxics Cleanup Program

These wastewater treatment plants earn an A+ in clean water

110 facilities recognized for their top performance 

Be honest, have you ever flushed a disposable wipe down the toilet? Did you pour the leftover grease from cooking down the kitchen drain? If you answered yes and are connected to the local sewer system, we suggest you thank a wastewater treatment plant operator!

LOTT - Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater, and Thurston County - 

Wastewater Treatment Plant is one of this year's award winners. 

Why? Because wastewater treatment plants – the place where anything that goes down the drain or toilet at homes and businesses ends up – deal with everything we put down the pipes that aren’t supposed to be there. These facilities keep Washington’s waters clean, by keeping pathogens, chemicals, trash, and sewage out of our water. 

Keeping a wastewater treatment plant in top-performing condition can be a tough job,  so every year we recognize these top-notch facilities and their operators. 

Thank you to Washington’s Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators

Our Deputy Directory, Polly Zehm, knows first-hand the challenges operators face. Early in her career, Polly was a wastewater treatment plant operator.

What this award means

We talked to employees at a few wastewater treatment plants to get a better sense of what this award means to them. Here’s what they had to say:

“The Outstanding Performance Award is important to all the personnel who work in and around the WWTP. It signifies the WWTP operators, Collection crews, staff, and management are collaborating as a team, paying attention to detail and supporting one another. It means that from the newest WWTP Operator to the Crewleader that ideas are valued for the successful operation of our plant,” said Dean Bugher, City of Kennewick’s Wastewater Services Crewleader. “Staying knowledgeable about our craft and up-to-date on compliance issues along with properly maintaining our equipment aids in our success. This in turn helps us to achieve a quality effluent which everyone can be proud of, knowing that we have done our part in keeping the aquatic environment around us clean, healthy and safe for all who use and enjoy.”

Matt Jenkins, the Public Works Manager for the City of La Center shared similar sentiments, saying “The positivity and pride that the operators get from achieving the award permeates through the entire organization. This award is one of the major goals we as a staff set for ourselves every single year. The staff strives to get the five year plaque on the horizon and the annual award is a fantastic affirmation of that effort.”

For some facilities, the award sparks some friendly competition. Mike Henry, the Operator in Responsible Charge of the Olympic Corrections Center said “We have won the award quite a few times and I think everyone is determined to win the award because they don’t want to be the first group of operators to not win it. The operators are proud of the awards. We have them hanging in the lab, except for the ones hanging in our administration building. That makes me think that our administration is as proud of our achievements as we are.”

This year’s winners

Here are a few highlights from this year’s awards. The full list of awardees is available online. 

Facilities with the most consecutive years of outstanding performance: 

• Manchester (Kitsap Co.) 24 years 
• Port Townsend WWTP 23 years 

The Sedro-Woolley team has won this award 17 times. 

Facilities with more than 15 years of outstanding performance, not necessarily consecutive: 

• Newport, 19 years 
• Salmon Creek (Discovery Clean Water Alliance), 19 years 
• Vancouver Marine Park and Westside, 18 years
• Sedro-Woolley, 17 years
• Lake Mayfield, 16 years
• Penn Cove Water & Sewer District, 16 years
• Seattle City Light – Diablo, 16 years 

This year we have a number of first time winners: 

• Seashore Villa Mobile Home Park 
• Enumclaw 
• Ione
• King County South Plant
• Sekiu
• Snoqualmie
• WA State Patrol Fire Training Academy 

Congratulations to these facilities and all 110 facilities for their hard working in protecting Washington’s waters. 

The Asotin Wastewater Treatment Plant is another one 

of this year's winners

Be a part of the solution

Ecology oversees the certification program for wastewater operators. Given our state’s growing population, we need to treat more and more wastewater. This is a great field, with growth opportunities. If you have experience as a welder, machinist, mechanic, operator at other similar facilities, laboratory technician, or engineer, you might have the right type of experience for this field! Check out our certification program website for more information. 

By: Colleen Keltz, Communications Manager for Water Quality