The shameful cleanup history of the Port Angeles Harbor-Rayonier Mill is tragic.
Are the state Department of Ecology and other government entities serious about cleaning up and restoring areas of the harbor?
In 1997, I organized a western Washington coalition of local residents and environmental organizations to stop Rayonier from exiting Port Angeles without cleaning up its hazardous waste.
EPA was ready to start the cleanup right away.
Instead, it went to Ecology’s Industrial Waste section that promised the site would be cleaned up in seven years.
After seven years, there was no headway.
In 2007, Ecology’s Model Toxics Cleanup program took charge and expanded its role to cleaning up the harbor, east to west.
Ecology intends to have a draft cleanup action plan for public review of the western harbor in January, and for Rayonier in March.
Regrettably, they plan much cover-up rather than cleanup.
Another Ecology division has permitted a bizarre, destructive, experimental operation in the western Harbor that will impact the Chinook, coho, chum salmon, steelhead, bull trout, cutthroat trout, forage fish, zones for migration, rearing and spawning.
The permit allows the project to proceed based on unsubstantiated statements that fish do not use areas of the project, but if fish do use the area, fish will avoid it if the project is unhealthy for them. But if fish don’t avoid the project, they won’t be impacted. But, if fish are impacted, it won’t impact many of them, so it won’t matter.
Darlene Schanfald
Sequim