Winter 2002 - Source to Sea: The Nooksack River

An Overdue Solution
by Kim Voros
Photos by Quoc Tran
Maps by Kim Voros

Outside her sixth-floor office window in the Herald building, Bellingham Bay demands Robyn du Pre's attention. From here, the North Sound Baykeeper and environmental advocate can watch the bay's ebb and flow. She watches green ocean water enter the bay and sweep east towards Bellingham, picking up chalky sediment as it flows past the Nooksack River's mouth.

As the sediment falls it blankets the chemical-laden bay floor where, according to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology, the soil contains toxic levels of pollutants such as mercury, phenols and four-methylphenol. The necessary clean-up is complicated by federal navigation channels, located between Georgia-Pacific West, Inc.'s pulp mill and Little Squalicum Creek, which must be dredged before they fill with silt.

Shipyards, city landfills, timber ponds, food processors, pulp mills and paper plants deposited most of the bay's pollution between 1900 and 1975. During recent testing, 45 percent of the contaminated sediment contained mercury.

The pollution distribution throughout the bay is not even; it occurs in concentrated areas, or hot spots, near its source. The largest concentration of contamination is in the Whatcom Creek Waterway, adjacent to G-P. Chip Hilarides, the facility's environmental manager said the corporation takes responsibility for some of the pollution.

All the contaminated sediment targeted for clean-up is in the inner bay, including the shoreline between Fairhaven and Little Squalicum Creek. The parties responsible for the pollution agree there is about 800,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment in the bay.

"If Safeco Field were your disposal site," said Mike Stoner, Port of Bellingham environmental manager, "(the contaminated sediment) would fill it top to bottom."

The contaminated sediment endangers plant life, fish and humans through a process called bioaccumulation. Aquatic plants, like land plants, absorb nutrients from soil and incorporate them into their structure. Contaminates from the soil accumulate in plants, which in turn contaminate animals. According to the EPA, people are exposed to mercury - which damages the brain and kidneys and causes birth defects - by eating contaminated seafood.

"The Mad Hatter was mad because he used to use mercury in hat making," du Pre said.

Historical pollution, like that in Bellingham Bay, falls under the Model Toxics Control Act, which "establishes administrative processes and standards to identify, investigate and clean up facilities where hazardous materials" are located.

MTCA is the state equivalent of the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, commonly known as Superfund. Through both acts, the government holds polluters responsible for any pollution they create. If a polluter cannot be located or has gone out of business, the government assumes responsibility for the clean-up costs.

Clean-up is required when a site's pollution levels exceeds legal standards. In Washington, Ecology is the lead agency for all MTCA-mandated decontamination projects, Ecology's Lucy Mclnerney said.

The concentration of mercury, specifically methylmercury, in Bellingham Bay's sea life ranges from one-part-per-million to five ppm, which would require health advisories in some states but not Washington.

"(It would) take another 20 years for the Nooksack to clean it up," Stoner said. "We want to do it in three or four."

But simply dumping clean sediment onto the contamination or allowing the river to cover it with sediment would significantly decrease the shipping channels' depths - effectively ending commercial shipping in Bellingham.

In May 1994, the Cooperative Sediment Management Program, a consortium of Washington state and federal agencies, began a project to serve as a model for future sediment clean-ups in the state. By integrating sediment clean-up, habitat restoration and economic redevelopment, program members hoped to increase the effectiveness of sediment purification processes.

"(CSMP founders) recognized that it was difficult to move forward in a timely manner on sediment clean-up," Mclnerney said. "It is time to find a better way to do this than spending everyone's time and money in court."

The CSMP considered a variety of bays to test their new model, including Elliot Bay in Seattle and Port Gardener Bay in Everett, but local officials brought the pilot project to Bellingham.

The CSMP formed the Bellingham Bay Pilot Project Team in 1996. Though Ecology and the city government co-supervise the project, the team uses a new consensus-based model to coordinate pollution control, sediment clean-up and habitat restoration in Bellingham Bay.

The team includes representatives from state and federal environmental agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Port and City of Bellingham, Whatcom County, the Lummi Nation, and the Nooksack Tribe. The group is broken into work groups to target sediment treatment, source control and habitat restoration. The entire team meets periodically to discuss each work group's activities.

There are, however, difficulties in the consensus-based model. Chris Spens, senior planner for the City of Bellingham and member of the pilot team, said agencies are accustomed to looking only at their own goals and can fail to realize opportunities for improvement.

"Its like putting 10 dogs and 10 cats and 10 mice into a room and then, on top of that, spraying them down with water," Spens said.

Despite the project's difficulties, Spens said the agencies involved have "the authority, technology, process and know-how" to reach a solution.

"We are the right people to tackle this problem," he said. "We really care."

In the fall of 2000, the team produced an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS, as mandated by MTCA, designating a preferred alternative to deal with the contaminated sediment and a comprehensive strategy for each clean-up component. In the plan, chemical hot spots within federal waterways will be dredged, while other hot spots will be covered with clean sediment to protect sea life.

This preferred alternative is not necessarily a final plan for clean-up. Stoner said the team must solve many design problems and finalize environmental permits before the plan is complete. During this process parts of the comprehensive plan may change, including the contaminated sediment's disposal site and storage method.

According to the EIS, a contained aquatic disposal site, or CAD, is the most cost-effective disposal option. With a CAD, sediment is dredged and then contained off shore in a sub-tidal area near the old Cornwall Landfill, capped with three to four feet of clean sediment and replanted with vegetation to encourage native species recolonization.

G-P's partial closure created another sediment disposal option. In its proposal, G-P would house contaminated sediments in 15 acres of a 27-acre wastewater-treatment lagoon, leaving the unused portion to treat wastewater. Ecology is reviewing a supplemental EIS on the G-P proposal before releasing it for public comment.

G-P's proposal would create about 15 acres of new land on the Bellingham waterfront, which would be owned by G-P, Hilarides said. If this alternative is chosen, the water drawn out of the sediment could be treated in the G-P wastewater treatment plant.

"This is the only alternative that allows you to use techniques that minimize the environmental impacts of dredging," Hilarides said.

While new land would be created, the underlying sediment would still be contaminated.

"You can change (the pollution's) form," du Pre said, "but its like nuclear waste - you can't make it go away."

Du Pre urged the team to reconsider removing the sediment entirely and dumping it in a landfill. Though the alternative was originally dismissed because of its cost, she said several pilot team members informed her the price of upland disposal has decreased significantly. In a letter she wrote to Ecology, she quoted a state agency official as saying, "the landfills are practically begging for this stuff."

Each alternative in the EIS carries a different price tag. According to the EIS the preferred alternative, capping, will cost about $29 million while upland disposal was about $84 million.

The cost will be split among the polluters based on the amount of pollution each created. Hilarides said G-P would be paying a large portion of the clean-up costs.

Despite the slow speed of the project, du Pre, Stoner and Spens each said the opportunity to work together provided them with better results than working alone.

Still, it is easy to get lost in the process and forget the end result. Looking out the window of her office, across the bay du Pre said, "We need to remember who we are doing this for and if it is because the sediment standards have been violated, I'm not interested."

Senior Kim Voros studies environmental policy at Huxley College. This is her first published work.

Current | Introduction | The Nooksack: Winding through History | Stewardship | Slopes and Boats | Wretched Water | The Primary Compound | 'Totally Unacceptable' | Assessing Value | Brink of Extinction | From the Ashes | Everybody's Problem | An Overdue Solution

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