Rep. Jim Moeller, D-Vancouver and Rep. Jim Jacks, D-Vancouver were instrumental in helping maintain state Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) funding for the groundwater cleanup process. The treatment towers – the most comprehensive method to cleaning the rest of the contamination – began pumping and treating contaminated groundwater in June. The legislators joined Commissioners Nancy Baker, Brian Wolfe and Jerry Oliver, as well as Schuyler Hoss – Southwest Washington representative to Gov. Chris Gregoire, and Rebecca Lawson of the Department of Ecology – at the event.
The facility will help speed the completion of the cleanup of TCE contamination in groundwater under the Fruit Valley neighborhood in West Vancouver.
“Our partnership with the state – not only Department of Ecology, but also with the Legislature – to get this project finished has been a big reason why it is now working,” said the port’s Executive Director Larry Paulson. “A heartfelt thank you goes out to Representatives Moeller and Jacks, and to the Department of Ecology.”
Trichloroethylene (TCE) and other chlorinated solvents were found in late 1998 in the groundwater during construction of the Mill Plain Extension. That property, formerly the site of Swan Manufacturing, was one source of the contamination. The other site, where Cadet Manufacturing is located on Lower River Road, was purchased in 2006 by the port as part of a settlement agreement and to help Cadet avoid bankruptcy and to keep cleanup efforts underway.
The new facility – owned by the Port of Vancouver USA and built by Rotschy, Inc., of Yacolt, WA – was tested in May, and is currently pumping contaminated water from an aquifer under Fruit Valley. It is the facility the port and the Washington State Department of Ecology jointly announced in July of 2007, and broke ground on in October of 2008. The $5.6 million project was listed at No. 12 in the Vancouver Business Journal’s 2009 Top Projects awards.
“This project is very important to the community,” Paulson said. “The contamination was left behind by a manufacturer that occupied the properties before the Port of Vancouver acquired the parcels but in line with our mission, the port is carrying out the environmental stewardship duty to cleanup this groundwater so it can be used as a source of drinking water for our community.”
The dedication included tours of the facility for those in attendance, which followed up on community tours held during the annual Fruit Valley Neighborhood Association picnic on Saturday, July 25.
Using a process known as “air stripping”, the facility pumps contaminated water from the aquifer, and filters it through various tanks before the air stripping removes contaminants from the water and discharging clean water – to qualities meeting or exceeding the Department of Ecology’s drinking water standards – into the Columbia River.
To date, the port’s cleanup efforts have been through excavation of soils, injection of hydrogen peroxide into the water, air sparging systems and the use of recirculating wells located in the Fruit Valley neighborhood. These efforts have reduced levels dramatically.
