The Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe (PGST), through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), will begin environmental assessment activities on the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribal Lands and areas in the Kingston/Port Gamble Bay vicinity.
Assessments are the first step in addressing potential hazardous substances and petroleum contaminated areas. Eventual Cleanup and reinvesting in these properties takes development pressures off of undeveloped, open land, which both improves and protects the environment.
EPA’s brownfields programs were created to help Tribes and local communities redevelop, reuse or expand real property that, because of contamination, pollutant, or hazardous substance, might otherwise be unusable. The Brownfields Program encourages development of America’s estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites. For more information, the program website is located at www.epa.gov/brownfields. Additionally, funding support is provided to state and tribal response programs through a separate mechanism.
In 2009, the Tribe received three EPA grants to begin investigations and environmental assessments. This included the EPA Tribal Response program followed by two Brownfields Assessment program grants — 50 percent of Washington State’s brownfields general program funds — in the last round of federal aid made available by the national redevelopment initiative. In April, the PGST will learn if they may receive an additional 2010 EPA Brownfields funding award for a property-specific assessment at a 12-acre shoreline property known as Point Julia.
The three grants will complement two additional grants the PGST Natural Resources Department and Foundation received that will work together to provide environmental assessment, data collection and sharing, public participation and education, for the following grant totals:
For more information concerning these grant awards or programs, please contact the PGST’s grants consultant Kathleen Byrne-Barrantes at 360-697-5815, or by email at grantsolutions [at] comcast [dot] net.
Community-wide hazardous substances and petroleum grant funds will be used to perform Phase I and Phase II environmental assessments at sites with potential contamination, conduct community involvement activities and human health risk assessments. Site assessment activities will be subcontracted for environmental investigation by qualified consultants selected through competitive bids. Brownfield assessments will characterize and document environmental contamination, which is a necessary step in the community’s sustainable economic development. An inventory of up to 20 contaminated sites may be expected and will likely include a former mill site in Port Gamble, abandoned waste dump and landfill in North Kitsap, impacted beaches or wetlands, and others to be decided.
Port Gamble Bay, the site of an historic sawmill and forest products manufacturing operation, is a small bay in northern Hood Canal contaminated with a variety of hazardous substances resulting from the historic Pope & Talbot mill operations in Port Gamble that lasted approximately 150 years. The site has been identified as a priority cleanup site for Puget Sound by the Governor’s Puget Sound Initiative. Contamination is related to sawmill operations, wood products manufacturing, and log chipping, rafting, and storage.
The bay provides the Tribe with treaty fishing resources such as clams and oysters, herring, salmon, and geoduck clams, while the waters provide swimming and canoeing opportunities. This is central to the Tribe’s way of life from historic, cultural, and natural resource perspectives, including economic, ceremonial and subsistence harvesting of fish and shellfish. Any activities affecting the health of the marine ecosystem therefore affect the health and well-being of tribal members who receive from it physical and cultural sustenance. These efforts will help the Tribe to improve the environment, restore is homelands, provide housing for its members, and develop business opportunities in a diversified sustainable manner.
The draft Community Involvement Plan (CIP) is available for review. As part of the CIP, both technical professionals and community members will contribute to prioritizing locations for future remediation. A series of technical meeting workshops will take place over the course of the projects timeline to provide information regarding site locations, assessment and sampling methods, and will involve stakeholders in the decision-making process. The PGST are also working closely with state and local agencies and will develop site specific safety plans taking into consideration potentially sensitive populations (e.g. children, pregnant women, infirm, etc).
Responses to questions and comments will be available on the PGST’s website (www.pgst.nsn.us/natural-resources) or provide your questions and comments to the aforementioned project contact.
Future Public Meetings will be announced through project fact sheets, press releases, on-site community notice boards, and a website located at www.pgst.nsn.us/natural-resources.
