Preserve Our Islands, as The Beachcomber pointed out in a news story last week, is concerned about what Glacier Northwest plans to do with its arsenic-laced soil, assuming it eventually begins excavating millions of tons of sand and gravel from its 235-acre site on Maury Island.
We’re also concerned about King County’s response to this pressing public health issue. Here’s why: The soil at the Glacier site contains arsenic, a carcinogen, at levels 20 times more than allowed under state law. More than 250,000 cubic yards of the contaminated soil, which the county defines as solid waste, will be removed should mining operations get under way.
Rather than transport this solid waste to an existing landfill, Glacier has proposed to dispose of the waste on-site in what they call a “containment facility.” Such an approach, however, comes with considerable ramifications.
In a 2000 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), this “containment facility” was defined by King County as a landfill and the application of health code regulations was directed. While community concern remained, the EIS was at least a commitment by the county that the proposed landfill would be subject to regulations in place to protect public health.
These regulations are important as the presence of arsenic in soil, air and water poses significant public health risk. When landfilled, natural processes cause the arsenic in the soil to mobilize. Glacier’s own studies show that the leachate, contaminated liquid that drains from the soil, contains arsenic at a level that is thousands of times higher than the state allowance for groundwater contamination. What might these already extreme leaching levels increase to if the soils are moved into a landfill?
Preserve Our Islands recently contacted King County to inquire about the permitting that was previously directed for the landfill. We questioned whether it could legally be constructed on the property due to regulatory restrictions as code does not allow landfills to be constructed near drinking water systems, over fault lines, near unstable slopes and in areas that are designated as critical aquifer recharge areas — all conditions found at the Glacier site.
Although the Seattle-King County Health Department is the jurisdictional agency, we initially presented our query to the county’s Department of Development and Environmental Services (DDES) as the larger project files are under its centralized oversight. DDES then contacted a specialist at the health department who confirmed to DDES that the proposal was indeed a landfill subject to code regulations.
Although the disposal was previously determined by the county to be a landfill subject to code regulations, a finding reconfirmed by the health department, the county – for reasons that are unclear – now seems to be considering the creation of a loophole big enough for the landfill to slip through and avoid applicable regulatory restrictions.
DDES, which has no legal authority in the matter, has informally reported that it believes the contaminated soils are not actually solid waste and in turn that the “landfill” is not really a landfill. This assertion is based on interpretation of the word “removed” in the county code definition of contaminated soils. Although the soil would be excavated and transported up to one mile away, because the soil would not be crossing a property line, the county said it was not “removed” and in turn did not constitute solid waste. As such, there was no disposal, and thus the landfill is not a landfill.
The trouble with this razor-thin argument is that had county officials actually read their own code, they would have realized that their definition of contaminated soils does not actually contain the word “removed” at all.
We pointed out this error and were then presented with an even thinner basis for the disappearing landfill. We were told, again informally, that the county now believed the landfill was no longer a landfill because the code defines disposal as the “deposit or placing of solid waste into or on any land.” and the county felt that the waste to be held in the lined and engineered facility was not, by the common understanding of the word, being deposited or placed into the facility and thus was not actually being disposed. Apparently the county does not own a dictionary.
Most troubling about these contortions is that the resulting loophole would benefit Glacier’s profit margin at the expense of protecting public health.
Landfills are forever, and no matter what you call them, they ultimately fail. This community cannot legally be left with a toxic legacy at the hands of King County’s confusion. In hopes of cutting through the legal and ethical nonsense, Preserve Our Islands met directly with the director of the health department, who is the jurisdictional authority on the issue.
We are hopeful that King County will move forward in a way that ensures the protection of public health. In the event that it does not, the community will sadly be forced to take our arguments to the courtroom.
— Amy Carey is the president of Preserve Our Islands.
