PORT ANGELES — The theme of the meeting was how the remaining structures on the Rayonier’s former mill site can influence the cleanup of Puget Sound.

But the Thursday meeting was not another information session held by Port Angeles city staff to explain how they want to use a large tank on the 75-acre waterfront property to prevent sewage overflows into Port Angeles Harbor and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Instead, the gathering hosted by the Olympic Environmental Council attempted to make the case for removing any and all remnants of the mill — including the 5-million-gallon tank.

“Our concept is more 21st century,” said Darlene Schanfald, the group’s coordinator for the environmental cleanup of the site, at the meeting held at the Clallam County courthouse.

Representatives of the state Department of Ecology, Puget Sound Partnership, the state Department of Natural Resources and Jim and Robbie Mantooth — the owners of Ennis Arbor Farm — made presentations, along with Schanfald’s.

About 40 people attended the meeting, which was funded by an Ecology public participation grant.

Instead of the tank, Schanfald said, the group wants to see the city use “low-impact development” and other methods to prevent storm water from overflowing the city’s sewer system, which causes about 32 million gallons of sewage to spill into the harbor each year.

City staff have said that option isn’t feasible.

In previous interviews, city staff members said they are not opposed to such alternatives but maintain that relying on those options alone would cost at least double the approximately $38 million to $45 million cost of hooking the tank up to the city’s sewer system, and not solve the problem — at least not for the foreseeable future.

The city’s plan for the tank, located next to its wastewater treatment plant, is to use it to store untreated storm water and sewage that would otherwise overflow during heavy rain fall, and drain the effluent to the treatment plant to the rate at which it can handle.

It must have the tank — which it currently doesn’t own — ready for use by 2015 or face fines from the Ecology of up to $10,000 a day.

While making the case against use of the tank, Schanfald said that it’s not big enough to handle all storm events.

That may be true since Port Angeles has seen overflow events of more than 5 million gallons.

For instance, on Nov. 16, about 9 million gallons of untreated effluent spilled into the harbor during a 17-hour period.

In an interview in May, city Public Works and Utilities Director Glenn Cutler said the tank could still handle that amount as long as the effluent was spread out enough over those 17 hours.

But he also couldn’t promise that such a large storm event — which also caused Tumwater Creek to flood on Nov. 16 — wouldn’t result in an overflow.

Still, Cutler said, the city’s plan to use the tank, approved by Ecology, will put Port Angeles in compliance with the state agency’s requirement that it have no more than four overflows a year on average after 2015.

The environmental council displayed a graphic of its vision for the Rayonier site, which has been a state cleanup site since 2000.

It showed a meandering, unrestricted Ennis Creek flowing into a restored estuary near a tribal cultural center.

The graphic also showed the pier removed.

Neither Rayonier, which owns the site, nor the Harbor-Works Development Authority, which has been tasked by the city with acquiring and redeveloping the Rayonier property, were invited to send representatives to the meeting.

No one from Rayonier attended. Jeff Lincoln, the executive director of the public development authority, and board member James Hallett attended to answer any questions that might arise.

Lincoln said that the public development authority also plans to restore the creek and its estuary — in addition to possible development.

Lincoln also said the company is maintaining its negotiation position that it won’t sell the property unless the sales agreement covers the company’s cleanup costs.

Pockets of PCBs, dioxin, arsenic and other toxins were found on the site, which is at the end of Ennis Street in northeast Port Angeles, after the pulp mill closed in 1997 following 68 years of operation.

Rebecca Lawson, regional manager for Ecology’s toxics cleanup program, said that while the future use of the property will play a role in determining the level of cleanup — how much, the “toxin pathways” will be more important.

The pathways, meaning how the contaminates move through the soil and groundwater, have not been all determined.

Rayonier is required to find all the pathways under a new agreement the company signed with Ecology earlier this year. That agreement requires the company to have a cleanup plan within the next three years.

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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.