Proving how meaningless the SEPA (“State Environmental Protection Act”) process has become, here is what the City believes warrants a SEPA Optional Determination of Nonsignificance… link.
This project involves construction of a 65 foot long shoreline bulkhead, which includes removal of 75 cubic yards of material, including 17 cubic yards from Bellingham Bay, at the R.G. Halely site, adjacent to Cornwall beach, which is part of the waterfront redevelopment district.
The City only recently entered into the Amended Agreement to conduct an environmental study of the site (the remedial investigation) and analyze cleanup options (the feasibility study). Thus, it is not clear to me how the City has the authority, prior to meeting these obligations, to issue an Optional DNS for construction at the R.G. Halely site.
An Optional DNS indicates that the City has determined that construction on land and water at this site will not result in significant environmental impact. However, this site is known to contain pentachlorophenol (PCP), hydrocarbons related to diesel fuel, dioxins, furans and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). As noted on the Port of Bellingham website, these contaminants are present in concentrations that exceed standards under the state's cleanup law, the Model Toxics Control Act, and must be addressed.
Moreover, in 2001 and 2002, Douglas Management investigated oil seeping into Bellingham Bay from the shoreline along the northern boundary of what is now the Cornwall Landfill site. The investigations identified contaminants and located a floating hydrocarbon plume immediately inland from the oil seep. The ongoing release of contaminants to Bellingham Bay prompted the company to take emergency actions, in concert with DOE, which included building a sheet pile wall along the shoreline, installing oil recovery wells, monitoring wells and equipment, removing some sediment, and building shoreline erosion protection. The City bought the property from Douglas Management in 2009 and is aware of this history.
Contaminants are known to have settled to the bottom of the sediment at this site. How will the City ensure that removing sediments in the water and constructing a large bulkhead will not stir up these dangerous toxins, causing them to disperse through-out the water? Because of the potential impact on water quality, I do not believe that the Optional DNS adequately protects public health and safety. Moreover, by using the Optional SEPA process, the City has eliminated the normal requirement to hold a public hearing, reducing the public's ability to weigh in on a matter of public health and safety.
The project area provides important winter habitat for state priority seabirds, whose numbers have dramatically dwindled in recent years, raising concerns within the scientific community. The seabirds have been appearing even more regularly in this area now that there is on-going construction at Paddle Point in Boulevard Park. Harbor seals can be frequently seen in the waters surrounding this site, or sunning on two nearby log haul-outs. The Optional DNS suggests that it is unlikely that the City will properly mitigate for fish and wildlife impacts during the construction period, or for temporary or permanent impacts that may result after the construction period.
The City states that this project is necessary to minimize erosion and stabilize the shoreline, which calls into question whether it is safe to proceed with construction of the overwater pedestrian walkway from Boulevard Park to the Cornwall Landfill. Overwater structures are known to disrupt natural shoreline processes, increasing shoreline erosion and decreasing shoreline stability. The cumulative impacts are amplified when other overwater structures, such as Taylor Dock, exist in the vicinity. Because the City has not yet conducted a cumulative impact analysis, it lacks information necessary for using the SEPA Optional DNS process.
In light of these concerns, I do not believe that an Optional DNS is the appropriate SEPA threshold determination for a construction project at the R.G. Halely/Cornwall Landfill, or any other shoreline MTCA site within Bellingham Bay, prior to City compliance with the Amended Agreement and final determination of an appropriate remediation plan. If you are as outraged as I am, please make your feelings known through letters and phone calls to the Mayor, the City Council, and the designated SEPA official, City Shoreline Planner Steve Sundin.
Has the city ever issued a Determination of Significance in its entire history?
ReplyDeleteHuman health protection is still last on Pikes list.
To be honest, both the City and the County routinely issue SEPA DNS's when an EIS or mitigation should be required, and I am sure this happens in other jurisdictions as well. The real problem is the system, which puts the fox in charge of the hen house. The Planning Director is normally the designated SEPA Official who makes the decision.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think this particular situation in unusually egregious, because it involves construction on a site that is being studied for future toxic remediation, which the City is required to coordinate with DOE. Is it possible this was done with DOE approval, and I have sent them a letter of inquiry, although I would remained concern even if DOE approved this.
Wendy,
ReplyDeleteYou do terrific research! Thank you for the interesting and factual reporting.
In this issue, however, I am afraid that the financially realistic level of environmental remediation will be less than we would otherwise want. The City/Port acquisition of the area was conceived in the go-go development-bubble years, when all Serious People would tell you that real estate would continue to grow in value at 10-20 % per annum, indefinitely. (Evidently these folks had slept through math class, to say nothing of thermodynamics.)
If that pipedream had been true, then pigs would fly, I'd sing like Pavarotti, and the City/Port would have been able to afford a gold-plated remediation standard.
But now the acid has worn off, the hallucinations are over, GP is making money comin' out the yin-yang in China, and this Bellingham Bubble has turned into a bad trip's aftermath.
If the SEPA DNS here is weak, well, that's because it has GOT TO BE. There just plain aren't the financial resources to do everything that was originally hoped, to the standard that was originally hoped. We will have to settle, more than we thought (during the bubble delusion), for bio-sequestration and sedimentary burial of contaminants. This planned interception of a oil-contaminated seep is just the sort of minimalist intervention that will be affordable.
I doubt that I will see significant development of the Port acquisition in my lifetime, and would even hazard the guess that neither will a much younger person like yourself! No development = no money.
Abe Jacobson