Horse Heaven

Horse Heaven Hills

I have been traveling and took this picture in the Horse Heaven Hills this week. The Horse Heaven Hills are a continuous set of east-west trending ridges that extend from the Cascade Range to the Blue Mountains across southern Washington. As can be seen in the picture, these hills are aptly named. The hills supported large horse populations for local First Nations including the Yakimas, Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla and Nez Perce. Even today on the western end of the hills a remnant herd reported at 5,000 horses (wild-horses-and-prairie-in-sky) roams these hills. The hills are green very late this year due to the higher rainfall and cool spring temperatures.

Juneuary and Some Field Pics

As Cliff Mass expresses it so well why-we-suffer-with-low-clouds I experienced Juneuary yesterday on my trip to the Olympic Peninsula and other points south. Long day. I made back to town to provide a bit of testimony on a proposed gravel deposit zoning change to the Planning Commission and a meeting of the County Flood Advisory Committee. More on that later, but posting may be limited for a few days with lots of family events.

Approaching Port Townsend

On days like yesterday it looks like the paper mill in Port Townsend is the source of all our clouds

Work involved a slope stability assessment, a stormwater/drainage inspection on a landslide area and a foundation inspection for bearing and lateral soil parameters.

Foundation in a mix of till and ice wasting units

Soft sediment deformation mid way up a slope with unopened California poppies 

Shallow slab failure off of a very compact glacial advance outwash sand.

Hazards and Flood Work at the Local Level

I have some community service work this week. Late this afternoon I am meeting with a citizen group regarding planning issues.

This evening I am providing a geologic perspective on hazard planning following a presentation from a Red Cross representative at a neighborhood meeting. The neighborhood is outside any flood zones and built primarily on bedrock. A relatively safe place to live, but that doesn't mean all will be dandy when the surrounding areas have severe damage. I'll be touching on floods, landslides, volcanoes, faults in the vicinity and the big fault on the coast.
On Thursday I have a Whatcom County Flood Advisory Committee meeting. The primary issue we have is to provide advice on revisions to the County Flood Code. These revisions are mandated by FEMA to reduce flood damage risk and to meet a biological opinion regarding the protection of endangered salmon stocks. The update must be done in order for flood risk properties to be eligible for FEMA flood insurance. Failure to do so means much higher flood insurance rates or no insurance at all.

We also will discuss levee vegetation. The Army Corp of Engineers has established new standards for having levees qualify as Corp Program levees. If a levee is in the program and meets the Corps standards, the corp will repair the levee with only a relatively modest financial contribution from local sponsors. The problem is getting levees in the program and meeting the vegetation standards and levee maintenance requirements is a bit daunting and expensive. Some of the committee members want to greatly expand the number of levees in the program, but local dike and flood districts do not have nearly enough money and they are turning to the County government to fund the upgrades and maintenance.

Lower Snake River - A Landscape of My Past

I just started reading a book on the Snake River. Starting the book brought back memories of my time on the Snake River. For a period of time I lived near the lowermost part of the Snake River near where it joins the Columbia River. At one point I drove across the lower end of the river every day on the way to work at the Wallula meat packing plant wallula-gap-and-john-mix-stanley. The winter I worked as a meat cutter, the lowermost Snake River froze over solid.

The lower Snake flowing from right to left and joining the Columbia on the left.

Notes denote a few of my hangouts along the river

The lower most dam on the Snake River, Ice Harbor Dam, was completed approximately the same time I moved with my family to Kennewick. If there was a dam with a power house and a tour anywhere in our vicinity, my father wanted to see it. He was a mechanical engineer and designed power plants so when Ice Harbor opened for tours we drove out to see the dam for my first experience of the Snake River.

Later, when I was in high school I got to go on a tour of the dam during turbine maintenance. The dam operators lowered each of the students down into the penstock via a small steel cage on a cable to see the blades connected to the turbine. It was awesome to be in the bowels of the dam knowing that the steel penstock closure on one side of the "room" was holding back a wall of water and sprays of water from the tiniest of holes along the edge of closure sprayed in on us. We observed pits in the steel of the turbine blades from the cavatating pressure on the back side of the blades. Someone asked, "What happens to the fish?" We were told they passed through without problems and on their return used the fish ladder which we visited as well. As I remember it some of us were a bit skeptical about the fish going through the turbines and being alright. But at the time it was early in the dam's operation and the numbers on fish returns were early yet.

I had several friends whose family's owned power boats and I got to water ski on the Snake frequently during the hot summers. Typically we would put in on the Columbia River at Kennewick. The Columbia is a cold river compared to the Snake. I was of the view we should not waste gas motoring to the Snake without skiing. I would attempt to start to ski from the dock and would ski down the Columbia to the Snake. By the time we neared the Snake my feet would be numb and entering the Snake felt like a hot tub. At that point I would let go and others would have their turn in the warm waters of the Snake.

We would hang out on the islands at the lower end of the river and try a little fishing. Occasionally we would go up to the dam and entered the concrete lock to be lifted up to the slack water behind Ice Harbor Dam. Amazing that you could get a free ride through the lock, but when the dams were built the power loss was considered cheap and the Army Corp did not want to interfere with river navigation even for small recreational boats.

Ice Harbor Dam with Levy Landing and the cliff jump

We also drove out Levy Landing Park to picnic or drive dangerously on the roller coaster like road. Billy Mays and I swam across the river and back a couple of times. Neither of us were great swimmers but we had endurance and Levy Landing was all about being young and risky. A short distance downstream of Levy Landing was a backwater between the rail line and the shore with a warm pool of water and 35-foot high basalt cliffs plunging into deep water. I initially thought jumping off those cliffs would allow the opportunity to briefly experience what it is like to fly. Perhaps that is what others experience when they jump off cliffs, but mostly it felt like falling and if you didn't control your body right the impact with water was not pleasant and would leave bruises. I have not made the jump in a while and am not sure about access. At the time there were occasions when someone would back a pick up to the edge so that the tail gate could be used as a diving board.

Delta area where the muddier Snake mixes with the Columbia

Lisa took this shot of the delta area with the Horse Heaven Hills and Jump-Off-Joe in the distance with a brush fire blackened area.

I also did a lot of fishing on the lower Snake in the delta area. My guide was Mike Fish a good mate and yes that was his name. He knew the ins and outs of all the fishing holes in the delta area and what kind of gear was required for each hole. At the time I was only vaguely aware of the lay of the land in the delta. This was the time before Google Earth. But as can be seen much of the delta was far from natural, with old abandoned rail lines and likely some dredging for ballast in the former gravel beds now drowned by water backed up water from McNary Dam downstream on the Columbia River. Great fishing and I always came home with a load of catfish and perch. We occasionally tried our hand at sturgeon on the main stem just below the dam but alas I have yet to experience the thrill of catching a sturgeon.

The mouth of the Snake River where it joins the Columbia was once a great gathering place for First Nations peoples all over the Columbia and Snake drainage areas. Lewis and Clark encountered this gathering during the late stages of the salmon harvest. The expedition had tired of eating salmon during their trip down the Snake and traded for dogs as a food source.

Bellingham Bay Cleanup - How is the Port's Cleanup Plan Doing? - Chapter 5

For readers into deep policy on the Bellingham Bay and Whatcom Waterway Cleanup this is the last chapter for now.

The Port's cleanup plan of capping most of the mercury contaminated sediment in the waterway and bay and excavating the ASB in preparation to converting it into a marina was initially estimated to cost $44 million. However, the Port cost estimate must be altered because of updated dioxin rules for sediment disposal sites in Puget Sound.

The US Army Corp of Engineers recently updated standards for in water dredged sediment disposal in the Salish Sea. Port facilities have to periodically dredge to keep shipping lanes open. The Corp has identified areas in the Puget Sound and Slaish Sea where dredged sediments can be disposed. The Corp developed new dioxin rules for dredge disposal sites that preclude using those sites if dioxin levels of the dredged sediments are above certain levels. This new standard will impact how dredged sediments will need to be managed. In addition Ecology has changed its sediment standards for dioxins in line with the new information used by the Corp.

These new standards have significantly impacted the costs and approach to the Port of Bellingham's cleanup plan for Bellingham Bay and Whatcom Waterway and the Port recently submitted an amended cleanup plan to Ecology  www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/1109121.pdf.

Amended cleanup plan (Ecology)

The new dioxin standards means that some of the sediment that the port wanted to dispose of in open water areas can no longer be disposed of in that manner and some additional areas that were to be capped now will need to be dredged. The Port's new plan with Ecology's tentative approval is outlined in the above picture. The new proposal is to excavate the ASB to a greater depth than needed for a marina and disposing the dredged sediment in the ASB followed by capping the dredged sediment and then opening the ASB to the bay for use as a marina.

This amended approach has been estimated to more than double the original estimated cost of the cleanup from $44 million to over $90 million. During the public comment period for the proposed amendment several citizens suggested that Ecology conduct a new Disproportionate Cost Analysis. A reasonable request given that Ecology had determined that an alternative cleanup plan estimated at $74 million was "not practical" and "incremental costs are substantial and disproportionate to remedy benefits".  At the public meeting the Port and Ecology did not indicate they were interested in doing such an analysis.

Given that response, I did a rough analysis using the diagram the Port and Ecology used during the review of the original Port cleanup plan. At this point I should add that I am of the opinion that the Port and Ecology very much need to do this analysis given that the cleanup plan is hugely expensive and will involve Port tax dollars, MTCA funds from state taxes and will have profound impacts on how a large area of the waterfront redevelopment progresses. I still hold out some hope that the Port and Ecology will do this analysis. In the interim I did a quick and dirty analyses of my own and would gladly stand corrected if more detailed analysis shows my estimates are substantially off the mark.

Port's Cost and Benefit Chart for Proposed Cleanup Options

Heavy dashed lines and red numbers added by me

I posted the above chart from the Port's cleanup plan on a previous post. I placed numbers at five locations on the chart and discuss those areas of the chart below.

It should be mentioned that the Georgia-Pacific's Alternative J cleanup approach most closely resembles Alternative 4 in the chart. I was not able to fully resolve exactly how comparable Alternative J was to Alternative 4, but it is reasonably close. Remember Alternative J entailed dredging nearly all the contaminated sediments in the waterway and bay and placing the sediments in a portion the ASB. The Port Alternatives 5 and 6 (noted as preferred on the chart) involve primarily capping of the sediments in place and dredging the ASB as a marina. I added new lines on the chart to reflect that new amended plan will involve disposal and burial of contaminated sediment beneath the marina. I also take a somewhat different interpretation on some of the values the Port and Ecology used on the original chart that in my opinion a more accurately portrayal of the actual values.

Number below correlate with the chart above.

1) In the port chart the remaining contaminated subsurface sediment is shown with the dashed blue line. Alternatives 1 through 4 according to the Port leave lots of contaminated sediment with Alternatives 5 onward removing significant amounts. However, the Port is counting as contaminated sediment all of the material in the ASB. At this point in time the ASB is not sediment as it is an upland site. Hence, the chart could very legitimately be drawn differently as shown at the number 2.

2) As explained above, the ASB is an upland site and the material in the ASB therefore is not sediment. Alternatives 1 through 4 all assume that the ASB remains an upland site. The thicker blue dashed line has been added to the chart to illustrate this different interpretation.

3)The benefits are presented with a line on the chart that references a Table 7 MTCA benefit ratings. The ratings are in many regards subjective and several of the benefit ratings have nothing to do with cleanup. One example would be that the ASB use as a marina is ranked as a higher benefit than the ASB being used as an upland site for development. Certainly marinas have benefits, but so do 37 acres of level readily developed waterfront property with a seawall that prevents lateral spreading in the event of a major earthquake. Ask different people and you will likely get a different view of which is more beneficial. The thicker dashed lines are my subjective benefit analysis using the same chart where equal benefit was given to 37 acres of developable land (alternative 4), the marina, and the continued use of the waterway as federal shipping channel.

4) This line shows the cost. Since the chart was developed, the port has found that the costs of Alternatives 5 and 6 are well over 100% higher than they initially anticipated and the added heavy green line reflects that the costs are now in the $100 million range.

5) The Port has recently proposed altering the preferred cleanup plan. As such the amount of contaminated subsurface sediments will essentially remain the same. The sediments will now be buried in an aquatic disposal site underlying the marina.

The new higher costs leave a significant degree of uncertainty to exactly how the waterway and bay cleanup will proceed. If the plan is significantly altered there could be large changes in water front redevelopment plans. The information that Puget Sound Energy has no intention of closing a gas turbine electric power plant and the increase in rail freight passing through the water front area combined with a different cleanup plan will impact the future landscape of Bellingham's water front.

Cherry Point Coal Terminal Update

Another Bellinghamcentric post, but I thought I'd do a short update on Washington State coal terminal issues with my Bellingham slant as to where the coal terminal action is currently.

I did a couple of posts on the coal terminal situation in Washington State in February coal-terminals-in-washington-state and coal-terminal-preemptive-strike. Since that time the proposed coal terminal in Longview has been withdrawn and the community resistance to the Longview terminal project has apparently grown. In Whatcom County SSA Marine has been running an intense PR campaign for a terminal that has yet to submit an application.

Last evening a public event was put on by the City of Bellingham to hear what issues people may have had regarding the project. John Stark at the Bellingham Herald reported on the event HERE. At least in Bellingham, there appears to be very strong opposition. I went to the meeting and it appears that this project is facing some of the broadest and strongest opposition I have seen for any potential development project in this area. I was unable to get in the building as there was a large overflow crowd.

Mr. Stark quoted a local labor union leader Mr. Warren (new retired) who has come out strongly in favor of the coal terminal including being pictured and quoted in advertisements in favor of the coal terminal. Mr. Warren was clearly agitated at the strong opposition. It can not possibly be a pleasant situation for him and a few other community members that have been advocates for the coal terminal. I spoke with him outside after the meeting. He wanted to assure me of two things: he really wants those jobs and he wants a full environmental review.

The problem he faces though is that SSA has thus far indicated that not all of the environmental impacts that some would want to include in a review of this project should be applied to the project. Just one major impact that SSA stated that they felt should not be included is the impacts from the rail traffic - a big deal on a local issue as the trains must pass through Bellingham immediately next to an area the City would like to see redeveloped. Other communities will be impacted by the increased rail traffic as 30 one-mile long plus coal trains day would pass from Spokane south through the Columbia Gorge and then from the Portland area up through the lowland of western Washington to Cherry Point. I am fairly sure SSA will not be too keen on having CO2 emissions included in the evaluation of the project either.

Mr. Warren was quoted as saying "environmentalists' hostility to Gateway Pacific has destroyed the alliance between them and organized labor". As I noted in those early posts this issue can be described as "A nice divisive issue to pit community folks against each other". Indeed that spilt has become very real. But based on my experience, local labor leaders may have broken that alliance a long time before this project came along, but that broken alliance is now starkly exposed.

MTCA Funds Proposed for Marina Excavation - Chapter 4

Tax payers pay a tax into the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) fund whenever they purchase gasoline and a number of other hazardous substances. The idea is to create a fund for funding cleanup projects. This tax was passed by a voter approved initiative and was recently upheld by a King County Superior Court ruling that simply dismissed the challenge to the law HERE. The tax provides funding to state and local communities for environmental cleanups, protection and management. 

For local governments faced with contamination issues from past industrial uses and garbage landfills these funds are an important part of cleanup and management of environmental contaminants. Many water bodies around the State of Washington as well as upland sites have been significantly impacted by legacy contamination from past industrial use when concerns about contaminants and the harm those contaminants could do to human health and the environment was not as well understood.  

The Washington State Department of Ecology recommends grant funding from the MTCA fund through grant application programs. And since Ecology is often very involved in cleanup selection process at sites involving local governments, Ecology has the potential to play a key role in funding of cleanup projects. 

   

The key policy decision in determining the extent and the cost of cleanup of Bellingham Bay and the Whatcom Waterway from mercury contamination from past waste water discharges from the Georgia-Pacific paper mill has centered on the aerated sediment basin (ASB) lagoon. 

The GP plan, Alternative J, called for dredging the contaminated sediment and placing that sediment in part of the ASB creating an upland area at part of the ASB at an estimated cost of $23 million.

The Port has indicated they would prefer to convert the lagoon to a marina and follow a different alternative to clean up the waterway and the bay. The Port policy on turning the ASB into a marina doubled the cleanup cost with an initial cost estimate of $44 million dollars for cleanup alone. It also means that more contaminated sediments will be left in portions of the waterway and bay covered over with a cap of clean sediment.

The Port's plan was estimated to cost nearly twice as much as the original GP cleanup proposal and would leave much greater amounts of sediment behind in the bay and waterway. And it should be noted that the GP cleanup plan likely would cost significantly less that the $23 million estimated sine a berm would not be required across the ASB unless someone else wants to use the ASB as a waste water treatment site (there have been suggestions of using the site for city stormwater, but I know little about the viability of such a proposal). Without the berm the cost of the GP proposal would be on the order of $15 million.

Half of the cleanup costs are proposed to be covered by state grants through the MTCA fund. Which leads to an interesting policy question: should state grants for environmental cleanup be directed toward a project where the landowner’s decision to create a large boat marina triggers a cleanup requirement and doubles the cost of the cleanup? Ecology and State leaders have consistently supported paying $22 million to support half of the cleanup costs that includes the excavation of a boat marina. Are there other projects around Washington State that have been denied MTCA funding in recent years? What should be the priority of MTCA funding? 

Next: The Port of Bellingham Plan Faces New Problems and Cost