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Chehalis superfund site deleted drom EPA’s national priority list

By Claudia Yaw, The Chronicle
Published: October 13, 2020, 8:35am

CHEHALIS — A toxic waste site in Chehalis has officially been delisted from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund national priority list. The move is part of a nation-wide delisting of 27 sites, three of which are in Washington state, and were first listed in the 1980s.

“It’s kind of a momentous event,” EPA regional spokesperson Mark MacIntyre said. “Delisting from the (national priority list) means that all the cleanup that needs to occur there has occurred.”

The contaminated site in Chehalis, near SW Chehalis Avenue and SW John Street, was listed in 1989 and was once home to the American Crossarm & Conduit Company, which constructed crossarms for railroad crossings. Wood was treated with pentachlorophenol (PCP), a carcinogen, as well as creosote and other hazardous chemicals. After the company closed in 1986, a major flood tipped over tanks full of those chemicals, contaminating the groundwater and soil. Beyond the company’s 16 acres of property, the contamination also leached into 25 to 30 other residential parcels, according to the EPA.

“The primary exposure would be from handling the contaminated soil and there is a little bit of inhalation risk as well,” Remedial Project Manager Jeremy Jennings said.

The delisting comes after all avenues to direct exposure have been addressed. Cleanup efforts included excavating contaminated soil, removing contaminants from the groundwater, and covering the land with a clean “soil cap.”

Now, oversight responsibility is shifted to the state Department of Ecology. Dr. Cheryl Ann Bishop, the department’s toxic cleanup program spokesperson said the department doesn’t anticipate any major issues with the property. New businesses started moving in in the 1990s, with the agreement that the new land owner would maintain the protective soil cap that prevents dangerous exposure to contaminated dirt underneath.

The other two sites being delisted in Washington are a groundwater contamination site at the Northside Landfill in Spokane and a site at Queen City Farms near Maple Valley, where industrial waste was dumped in and around three ponds. The state still has over 40 active contamination sites on the national priority list.

According to EPA Regional Administrator Chris Hladick, delisting can also signal to the community that the property can move forward with development and economic growth.

In a Monday press release, the agency stated that the delisting of the 27 sites is “sending a clear message that human health and the environment are protected and paving the way for redeveloping these properties into community assets.”

“Deletions from the NPL can help revitalize communities and promote economic growth by signaling to potential developers and financial institutions that cleanup is complete,” the press release reads.

The EPA also emphasized that under the Trump administration, the agency has delisted historically high numbers of contamination sites. Hladick credits this to the administration’s dedication to cleaning up sites on the national priority list. During Trump’s four years in office, 82 sites have been delisted. For many of these sites, including the American Crossarm & Conduit Co. site, cleanup was actually finished decades prior.

At the same time, a backlog of Superfund sites has grown under the Trump administration, according to the AP, and the president has proposed slashing the EPA’s budget.

Hladick said if those cuts were approved by Congress, employees could be lost, limiting the EPA’s work cleaning up toxic waste Superfund sites across the country, including another Chehalis site near the intersection of Labree Road and Hamilton Road North, where a likely-carcinogenic chemical has leaked into the groundwater and Berwick Creek.

“But that hasn’t happened, and Congress has indicated that the EPA is important,” Hladick said.

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