The Washington Department of Ecology is taking public comment on the plan to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater below the site of a former Montlake gas station.
The Circle K cleanup plan would include a two-phase process starting in the summer of 2019 including “injections of oxygen-releasing chemicals to oxidize contaminated groundwater and “ground water and soil vapor extraction,” the announcement from the state reads.
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The proposal for the site at 2350 24th Ave E — currently home to Mont’s Market and Jay’s Cleaners — is part of a standard process at the many properties across Seattle with industrial pasts. Thursday, CHS reported on contamination below the Hilltop Service Station that will also be part of a future state-monitored cleanup process. That property is being lined up for eventual redevelopment. We’re not aware of any current plans for development at the Montlake property.
According to the state, the gas station operated on 24th Ave E rom 1968 to 1990. Petroleum contamination was discovered after a release in 1989 from a leaking underground storage tank. In 1992, the state and a new property owner entered into an agreement where the owner received a state loan to cover a portion of the cleanup costs. A partial cleanup removed leaking tanks, and added a product recovery system that operated until 1997.
Site planning documents available for comment include reports on Ecology’s remedial investigation and feasibility study (PDF document), which evaluated the location and extent of the site’s contamination and compared cleanup alternatives, and a draft cleanup action plan (PDF) for the site.
The state is accepting comments from September 17th through October 16th, 2018 vis this online comment form. You can learn more about the cleanup site here.
So presumably this is being worked on/looked at because the property is going to be redeveloped?
Greg – Interesting presumption! There’s no records of such a move with King County so your presumption has no merit. The former owners appear to have purchased the land for pennies (78k in 1990). The site was listed on the NPL, and has gone through quite a bit of remediation already. It’s an Ecology-supervised site, meaning Ecology got involved to make sure shit gets done. Our government functions pretty well when it comes to these cleanups!
It’s just too bad that this Kennedy Jenks report is garbage, and the “cleanup” will cost $1.6M dollars and will likely accomplish very little. If only we made these contracts performance based.