Brownfield Cleanup sites

Squaxin is checking initial federal and state database screenings for sites on the reservation that are potential brownfield sites.  Those include underground storage tanks that may already be decommissioned, illegal garbage dumps that have partial records of cleanup.  Outside the reservation, we are meeting with WA State Dept. of Ecology to discuss their cleanup progress on existing sites.

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The total Number of Brownfield sites is as follows, Development of the initial list of contaminated or potentially contaminated sites began with downloading Ecology’s database of all 180,704 Facilities and Sites of Environmental Interest in the State. This database contains information for sites within the State for which a permit or permit related report, notice, or violation has been issued. This database was clipped to include only those entries within the SITs U&A; this resulted in a total of 6,163 entries.

Data from the State Brownfields program and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Brownfields sites list were also downloaded and cross-checked against the initial download. Four sites were listed in the State Brownfields Program and seven were listed in the federal list, but there was some overlap with sites already listed in Ecology’s database. After reviewing all of the Brownfield’s sites, a total of four new sites were identified and added to the master database for a revised total of 6,167 entries.

Since the master database includes a wide variety of sites of possible interest to Ecology (e.g., a wetland mitigation site, a site covered by an NPDES permit, and a dam site) most of them were not of interest to this inventory. The Interaction Type Code (ITC) indicates which Ecology program the site is connected to and therefore indirectly reflects the reason for Ecology’s interest in the site. There were a total of 86 ITCs in the master database that Herrera reviewed to screen the list. Most of these were eliminated because they are not related to contaminated or potentially contaminated sites, which resulted in approximately 1,500 entries in the master database.

The next step was to consider the ‘site status’. Site’s with the following status were also eliminated from the database:

  • Construction Complete-Performance Monitoring
  • No Further Action

After meeting with Ecology final changes were made to the inventory, resulting in a complete inventory of 234 sites. This inventory still includes multiple listings for some sites, which will be further evaluated under Phase 3. The database reflecting these sites was submitted to the SIT. Figure 1 depicts the locations of all of these sites within the SIT U&A.

The highest priority areas for the SIT are those near Oakland Bay and Budd Inlet and near areas currently or potentially used for shellfish harvest. These areas are shown in Figure 2. There are 145 sites identified within 1/4 mile of these high priority areas. These attributes were added to the inventory database to allow easy sorting.