PORT ANGELES — Port of Port Angeles commissioners awarded on Monday a $3.57 million contract to finish cleaning up the abandoned KPly mill site in hopes that the 439 Marine Drive parcel will be ready for development by November.
In a second related unanimous board action, commissioners approved a $794,653 professional services agreement for remedial action that will include two years of quarterly sampling and installation of compliance monitoring wells on the 19-acre parcel.
The $3.57 million contract was awarded to Engineering/Remediation Resources Group of Seattle, which submitted the lowest of six bids.
The $794,653 professional services agreement went to Floyd Snider, also of Seattle.
Floyd Snider will manage the cleanup.
The company’s new contract adds to the $979,199 covered by the port’s insurance and paid to Floyd Snider since January 2013 for tasks including preparation of an environmental assessment and a draft cleanup action plan.
Peninsula Plywood ceased operations at the site in December 2011.
Structures on the parcel a block west of downtown were demolished in fall 2012 and early 2013.
Heavy equipment operators were breaking up concrete at the site Monday.
Port Director of Engineering Chris Hartman said Monday that as early as Aug. 3, workers will begin removing soil and groundwater laden with gasoline, diesel, heavy oil, dioxins, furans, benzene and pentachlorophenol, a wood preservative.
The contaminants will be transported to a landfill.
The port had set aside $4.5 million in the 2015 capital budget to clean up the site and make it presentable to potential tenants.
Outside funding sources will continue to include insurance coverage and state Department of Ecology funds.
The port also will try to recover costs from claims against former owners and operators at the site, including Rayonier Inc. and Exxon Mobil.
The port also has been awarded a $1.5 million remedial action grant under the state Model Toxics Control Act, the proceeds of which are generated by a tax on petroleum products.
The cleanup is being conducted under an agreed order with Ecology, referred to as DOE.
“I want to give a shout-out to DOE [Ecology],” said Commissioner John Calhoun, the board’s senior member.
“DOE has worked very well with us on this project.
“I have very few complaints.
“There was a time I never would have said that, but I am today.”
The $3.57 million contract was the largest single allocation Calhoun said he has approved in his two six-year terms on the board.
“Maybe the milestone of my two terms on the commission is to get this accomplished,” he said.
“It’s everything we should be doing as a port.”
The mill opened as Peninsula Plywood in 1941 and became a Rayonier affiliate for 18 years beginning in 1971.
It was sold to an Alaska-based corporation and renamed KPly in 1989.
KPly shut down the mill in 2007.
It was reopened in March 2010, renamed Peninsula Plywood and then was shut down for good in December 2011 with the company owing the port, city of Port Angeles and state Department of Labor & Industries $2.4 million.
Ecology has long supervised cleanup of the site.
Under a 1990 Ecology remedial action order, Rayonier for several years monitored and abated a hydraulic oil spill that occurred when the company operated the mill as ITT Rayonier.
Rayonier stopped those activities once the site was demolished.
Port officials want to find a tenant in the marine trades industry to set up shop there.
“We’ve been entertaining and visiting potential customers around the Sound,” Hartman said.
“I would say [there is] strong interest in marine trades for that site.”
“There are no prospective tenants at this point, but the key point is, it will be ready for development.”
Brian Young of the state Department of Commerce also introduced himself to the commissioners during a brief presentation Monday.
The port’s plans to develop a Composite Recycling Technology Center “can turn into real jobs,” said Young, Commerce’s director of economic development for the Clean Technology Sector.
“Using scraps and leftovers to produce new materials is really exciting,” he said.
“Carbon fiber and other composites are high on the list in areas we lead not only the nation in but the world.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.