Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Moving step by step toward the clean-up stage, the Palouse Brownsfield project will be the subject of a public meeting next Thursday, Dec. 1.
On Main Street in Palouse, next to Bagott Motors, the half-acre Brownsfield site is a former fertilizer producer’s location which was contaminated with lead, arsenic, manganese and other pollutants.
In 2009 the city received a $200,000 integrated planning grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE) to create a plan for the site’s future.
Organizers in turn hired the engineering firm of Maul Foster Alongi, Portland, and are now in the process of gaining final agreement from the DOE for their site evaluation, cleanup and funding strategy.
The city will now seek public comment on these plans.
Doug Willcox, Chairman of the Brownsfield Citizens Committee, doesn’t expect much disagreement.
“It’s really a win-win deal for the city,” he said. “This currently blighted site on our Main Street will be made productive again, at no cost to the city and no liability.”
The plan is focused on the clean-up and does not designate a certain end-use for the property – whether it becomes a kayak launch or a new business.
“In the end, we want to have a piece of commercial property or otherwise with a clean bill of health,” said city councilman Mike Milano.
The city’s goal is to get the project funded and underway by the end of this year.
At the Thursday, Dec. 1, meeting, organizers will introduce their clean-up plans and ask for concerns from the public.
The meeting will include Mayor Michael Echanove and representatives from the DOE and the engineering firm of Maul Foster Alongi.
Willcox said he expects the project to move right along.
“I feel fairly confident that over the next couple of months, we’ll gain the funding and proceed to actual cleanup by the summer or fall of 2012.”
In the ‘80s, frequent spills from the fertilizer business, Palouse Producers, left the site a hazard, as deemed by the DOE.
The DOE term “brownsfield” means a “real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.”
The Palouse project began in 2006 when the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated the cleanup need.
Doors open at the Palouse High School gym at 6:30 for open house followed by the meeting at 7 p.m.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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