These are the next steps in proposed cleanup of former gas plant at Boulevard Park
Public comments will be accepted through July 21 for a proposed $9.3 million cleanup of pollutants left behind by a former gas manufacturing plant and other historic industries on the north end of Boulevard Park.
An online public meeting for the project for the South State Street Manufactured Gas Plant Site has been set for 6 p.m. Thursday, June 25.
The cleanup site is about 6 acres on Bellingham’s waterfront, and the cleanup could temporarily restrict access to that section of the popular park.
The proposed plan involves removing structures, capping contaminated soil and sediment, enhancing the natural breakdown of groundwater contamination, protecting the shoreline, monitoring, and restricting activities that could disturb capped areas, according to the Washington State Department of Ecology.
What will be done is expected to be finalized later this year. The actual cleanup could start in 2023.
The South State Street Manufactured Gas Plant made gas from coal for home heating and cooking from the 1890s to the 1950s.
Bellingham Bay Gas Co., the predecessor to Puget Sound Energy, was the first to operate the plant. Cascade Natural Gas later bought it and continued to run it in the 1950s.
Residential developers bought the plant property in the 1960s. In 1975, the city acquired most of the gas plant’s property for a park.
Chemical contaminants left behind by the plant are the focus of a cleanup effort being overseen by Ecology and involving the city of Bellingham and Puget Sound Energy.
Other sources of contamination could come from previous lumber mill and railroad operations at the site, Ecology has said.
PSE is involved in the cleanup effort because its predecessor was first to operate the plant when it opened in the 1890s.
The state and BNSF Railway Co. also have some property in the contaminated area, which is off Bayview Drive and South State Street.
Contaminants found at the site include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, naphthalene, cyanide, selenium and lead, according to Ecology.
The contamination was found in the sediment, soil and groundwater in concentrations that exceed standards to protect the environment and human health, and must be dealt with under the state’s Model Toxics Control Act.
Information on Ecology’s proposed cleanup plan, environmental review, how to make a public comment, and the online public meeting, including how to register for it, are online at www.bit.ly/Ecology-SouthStateStMGP.
Public comments will be accepted June 22 to July 21.
A virtual tour of the site, including informational videos, has been created by RE Sources. Find it at www.re-sources.org/BoulevardPark.
