This is what Ecology plans for the Whatcom Waterway cleanup site through September

Water sampling and structure surveys will be conducted at the Whatcom Waterway cleanup site through late September, according to the Department of Ecology.

The Whatcom Waterway site is more than 200 acres in Bellingham Bay including the waterway near Waypoint Park. The site includes underwater land in the bay and a former industrial waste treatment lagoon left from the former Georgia-Pacific pulp and paper plant.

The cleanup was split into two phases, with removal of contaminated sediment, creosote-treated timber, concrete and asphalt rubble completed in 2016.

Work on Phase 2 is currently in the pre-remedial design investigation stage, meaning additional information about the site will need to be collected before a comprehensive cleanup plan can be drawn up.

Some of the information being gathered includes surveying eelgrass and the seafloor to see where work will overlap with marine habitats, collecting samples of water from the waterway to determine the extent of sediment contamination in the water and testing the strength of the sediment along the aerated stabilization basin.

The cost of the activities is around $500,000, but up to half of that could be reimbursed through the state’s Remedial Action Grant Program which provides assistance to public cleanup sites.

The waterway cleanup is the largest of the 12 cleanup sites located in the Bellingham Bay area aimed at restoring habitats and cleaning up contaminated sediment.

So far the Holly Street Landfill and the Eldridge Municipal Landfill are the only sites to have completed the cleaning process. Fieldwork on the nearby I & J Waterway resumed in early June. More information about the work on the waterway can be found on the department’s website.