SALT CREEK — Forty-two years after the bullets stopped buzzing, the Environmental Protection Agency is cleaning up a lead-riddled pocket of Salt Creek Park that was once a target for a shooting range.
EPA contractors started excavating a 70-foot-by-100-foot section of the park Friday, said Kathy Parker, EPA site manager.
A state Department of Natural Resources crew cleared trees and underbrush earlier in the week to widen a path that leads from the main parking lot to the target site.
Topsoil excavated
One to 2 feet of topsoil will be excavated and trucked off to a hazardous waste disposal site in Arlington, Ore., Parker said.
EPA officials hope to complete the $380,000 federally funded project by Halloween.
“That’s the goal,” Parker said.
Parker said the work may spill into early November because of the steep slope where most of the excavating will take place.
“We’re starting to get material falling,” she said.
Clallam County health and parks officials are engaged in the project and helping with some of the decision-making, Parker said.
The contaminated site is in a small area that the public generally does not encounter in the southeast corner of the popular 196-acre park 15 miles west of Port Angeles.
It is located near the Striped Peak trailhead, close to the softball field.
Access to the Striped Peak trail from Salt Creek will be closed until the work is complete, Parker said. The site is well-marked with signs.
“It’s obvious,” Parker said.
The site is contaminated with lead, copper, zinc and other metals from bullets used in a World War II-era shooting range, the EPA said in a May 21 report.
Lead concentrations higher than 250 parts per million are considered harmful to humans, Parker has said.
High concentration
The highest lead concentration found in lab tests performed on 160 soil samples at Salt Creek was 66,600 parts per million — or 6.66 percent of the soil.
Lead can damage a human’s neurological functions if ingested. It can concentrate in plants that humans and animals eat, like berries or mushrooms.
The EPA’s on-site study was prompted by questions from a county resident, Josey Paul, who raised concerns over lead contamination in forests, wetlands and marine shorelines.
The federal government acquired what is now the Salt Creek Recreation Area during World War II to build the Camp Hayden Military Reservation artillery battery.
After the war, the Coast Guard used the property as a shooting range until 1957. A civilian gun club operated a 200-yard and 500-yard target range until the county closed it down in 1968.
The park has 92 campsites, trails, playfields, beaches and tide pools.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              360-417-3537      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
