As the sun begins to set, the calm sound of the changing tide fills the air. A child dips his feet in the cool waters of Bellingham Bay, screams loudly and runs back to his mother.
Boulevard Park, the mile of waterfront stretching from the Taylor Avenue Dock to the intersection of State Street and Boulevard, has been dramatically impacted from more than a century of industrial use. Creosote, also known as coal tar, and other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from the coal gasification plant that operated on the site until the mid 1950s are now leaching into Bellingham Bay from the contaminated soil. These byproducts from the plant may have a negative impact on human health.
In 1889, the Fairhaven Land Company built a coal gasification plant on this piece of property, said Brian Griffin, amateur historian and author of "Boulevard Park and Taylor Avenue Dock on the Old Bellingham Waterfront."
Griffin said the plant consisted of a large holding tank 40 feet in radius that used heat and pressure to turn coal into gas. The gas was then pumped through an intricate channel of pipes to power Bellingham homes and businesses. The polluted soil is due to the plant's operations, Griffin said.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), creosote is used to protect wood products, such as utility poles and railroad ties.
The EPA has determined it is not clear whether workers who are repeatedly exposed to creosote face health risks in the future. However, the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry outlines several health risks from contact exposure to creosote including nose and throat irritation, gastrointestinal damage, skin damage and possible death.
PAHs are formed from the incomplete burning of coal, oil and gas, according to the disease registry Web site. The most common forms of exposure include inhaling PAHs from burning fossil fuels and ingesting charred meat products. The disease registry lists some PAHs as probable carcinogens.
Griffin said the Fairhaven Land Company received money from its insurance company, the New Amsterdam Casualty Company, to clean up the contaminated soil, but doesn't know if the company attempted to clean up the soil or not.
Tim Wahl, Greenways Program coordinator with the Bellingham Parks and Recreation Department, said it is not clear how much pollution is in the soil. He described the pollution, pooled underneath the park, as having a dark, soup-like consistency. It is not clear if coal tar is the only contaminant in that soupy mixture.
"We don't know how the degraded [PAHs from the coal gasification plant] are leaching into the air, but we do know it is leaching into the bay," Wahl said.
Specific steps need to be taken before Boulevard Park can be cleaned up, Wahl said. It has been difficult for all property owners of the park to agree on how to cheaply and effectively clean up the polluted soil.
The main property owners of Boulevard Park are the City of Bellingham, Whatcom County, the State of Washington and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, he said.
Wahl said the three-phase cleanup process would take approximately three to 10 years. The first phase is to drill holes in several locations throughout the park to figure out how much of the soil is polluted, where the pollution is located and find out exactly which creosote or PAHs are in the soil.
Engineering company Hart Crowser, based in Seattle, is set to begin sampling and evaluating the level of contamination in Boulevard Park's soil for $650,000, according to the Department of Ecology's Web site. The City of Bellingham will contribute $75,000 to the project.
The second phase involves calculating the cost of cleaning up Boulevard Park, Wahl said. Depending on how much soil is contaminated, the parties involved will either cap or contain the creosote and PAHs to stop the pollution from spreading.
The third phase is to clean up or remove the creosote and PAHs. Some city officials believe the most effective option would be to use bacteria and plants to break down the contaminants in the soil, Wahl said.
"We have to make a decision based on the sciences of the risks involved in this project and the economic cost to clean it up," Wahl said.
Dale Norton, the unit supervisor for the Toxic Studies Unit for the Department of Ecology, said in his 1998 soil sampling study in Boulevard Park, he and his colleague found that PAHs had migrated from the contaminated soil into Bellingham Bay.
"Boulevard Park is similar to Gas Works Park in Seattle," Norton said. "They were both coal gasification plants and had similar processes to produce gas."
According to the Washington State Department of Ecology Web site, the PAHs at Gas Works Park were contained by covering the contaminated soil with 12 to 18 inches of soil and grass. Ecology research from 2000 to 2005 indicates this method has worked to prevent the contaminants from further leaching into Lake Union in Seattle.
Despite the environmental problems that still plague Boulevard Park, Griffin said the creation of the park was a victory for the public to have access to Bellingham's waterfront after a century of industrial domination.
Before the park was created, Bellingham residents had to cross the railroad tracks on Easton Avenue, walk through the local garbage dump north of the park and risk receiving trespassing charges to gain access to the waterfront, Griffin said.
He said that many Bellingham's wealthiest citizens felt the Bellingham waterfront should be exclusively for industrial purposes, while the greater community fought the Bellingham City Council to create a public park.
"The mayor in the 1970s opposed the park rather actively," Griffin said. "That's why it took so long to get the project going."
Jeff Jewell, the photo historian at Whatcom Museum, said that conceiving the idea and actually building Boulevard Park was a 20-year project.
"What those owners didn't know was that property values around the park have skyrocketed since the park was put in," Jewell said. "I think out of all of Bellingham's parks, it is the showpiece park."
Griffin said Boulevard Park is a work in progress and will continue to improve and grow in the future.
"The thing Western students should know is that wonderful park and walkways came not from government action but civilian action working to get the government to act," Griffin said. "Enjoy this great community, but realize it took a lot of work to get this far."
Chelsea Crump studies journalism. She has been published in the Western Front and on the Klipsun Web site. This is her first published piece in The Planet.