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

A Little Green for the Brownfields

EPA awards $2.4 million for cleanups in Washington

Ninth Street Park, a brownfield cleanup site contaminated with arsenic
and lead from decades of pesticide use.

In June 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded nearly $2.4 million in grants to five recipients in Washington to help assess and clean up local brownfields — properties that haven’t been redeveloped due to potential contamination with hazardous substances.

The five EPA grant recipients are:

• Port of Skagit County
• Trust for Public Land
• Olympia Regional Coalition (City of Olympia, Port of Olympia, and the Olympia Metropolitan Parks District)
• City of Spokane
• Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation

We will be working in close partnership with EPA to assist the grant recipients and oversee assessment and cleanup — including making the final determination that a property is clean enough to meet state standards and be redeveloped.

Historic photo of the former Northern State Hospital in Sedro-Woolley

Recipients will use the EPA grants to assess and clean up dozens of brownfield properties, including:

• Former Northern State Hospital site at Sedro-Woolley
• Former cherry orchard land in East Wenatchee
• Blighted properties in Olympia
• Contaminated properties in Spokane’s 770-acre University District on the Spokane River
• Former ranch and wood product facilities on the Colville Reservation

To turn brownfield sites into marketable assets for the community, property owners will need to follow remedies that make sure each site meets state human health and environmental protection standards.

After meeting state cleanup requirements under the state Model Toxics Control Act, property owners can seek a “no further action” determination from us. This designation removes many barriers to redevelopment and helps property owners get financing and approvals to develop the sites.

Planning for cleanups

The EPA awarded two types of grants to Washington recipients: assessment grants and cleanup grants.

Assessment grants provide funding for identification of contaminants, evaluation, and cleanup planning.

• A “Phase I Environmental Site Assessment” is the first step in evaluating a brownfield site. Phase I assessments are a historical review to determine if contamination is likely. This sets the stage for further testing, planning, and cleanup.
• “Phase II assessments” are scientific evaluations. Soil, groundwater, surface water, and indoor air are sampled and tested to determine the exact contaminants and the extent of contamination. This information is required to plan the cleanup.

Assessment grants also help pay for public outreach and engagement so the community can be informed about the cleanup and the future of the properties.

Cleanup grants help pay for the actual work to clean up a site. Cleanup can take many forms, from removing and replacing soil, to complex treatment plans, to securing contaminants in place.

What the grants pay for



Northern State Hospital campus, a brownfield site in Sedro-Woolley that
housed mental patients in a self-contained community.

• The Port of Skagit County will use its $395,000 grant to clean up two areas of the former Northern State Hospital campus in Sedro-Wooley. The 225-acre site operated as a state mental health hospital from 1912 to 1972. The hospital campus has 600,000 square feet of buildings, a power plant, a former landfill, and several maintenance shops. The cleanup will focus on groundwater and soil contaminated with chlorinated solvents around the former laundry building, and the gymnasium field, which is contaminated with arsenic.

Cherry seedlings growing in Ninth Street Park, a former cherry
orchard, next to a neighborhood in East Wenatchee.

• The Trust for Public Land will use the $500,000 federal grant to clean up the Ninth Street Park in East Wenatchee. This 2.3-acre park was a cherry orchard from the 1930s through 2008. The cherry trees were removed in 2011, but heavy metal and arsenic contamination remains in the soil from the lead arsenate used as a pesticide. Agricultural use of lead arsenate was stopped in the 1960s and the EPA banned its use entirely in 1988. The grant will also help fund community engagement activities and development of a site management plan that educates workers on the soil conditions and safe practices when working at the site.

• The Olympia Regional Coalition is receiving a $600,000 grant. The focus is on the Peninsula and West Bay neighborhoods. The coalition will use the funds to conduct 14 Phase I and 10 Phase II site assessments, create five cleanup plans, update the city brownfields inventory, and conduct community outreach.

• The City of Spokane will use its $600,000 grant for the 770-acre University District along the Spokane River. The city will use the money to assess potential historical contamination on 14 sites (Phase I), sample for contamination on eight more (Phase II), and develop eight cleanup plans and six reuse plans.

• The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation will use its $300,000 grant to assess potential contamination on three sites (Phase I) and conduct sampling on seven others (Phase II). The focus area includes three wood products facilities, a blighted residential property, and the chemical handling area of the former Hinmans Ranch. The grant money will also help create three cleanup plans and conduct public meetings.

By Marcus Humberg, Communications Specialist, Toxics Cleanup Program.