PORT ANGELES — It was once the site of the biggest private employer in Clallam and Jefferson counties.
Today it’s a strategic, 75-acre spit that forms the largest available waterfront property on the North Olympic Peninsula.
A Rayonier pulp mill operated on the spit, just east of the Port Angeles downtown, for 68 years, until it closed March 1, 1997.
Today, what’s left is a four-acre dock, a flattened mass of dirt, shards of metal from buildings and machinery torn down and sold for scrap — and pockets of PCBs, dioxins, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead and other hazardous contaminants.
But one day it will be the site of new industry — or a marina or shops and homes.
That day is three to four years in the future.
On Tuesday night, state Department of Ecology officials told a meeting that the first steps toward cleanup of the old mill site — field sampling of sea life and interim work plans — are scheduled to begin in June.
The meeting, attended by about 50 people, was the first of many regarding the cleanup.
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