The Washington State Department of Ecology this week announced another delay in the release of final cleanup documents for public review and comment related to the Unocal site, adjacent to the Edmonds Marsh. These documents include an updated feasibility study, a cleanup action plan, a consent decree and a State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) Determination of Non-Significance.

In January 2005, Unocal and the Washington State Department of Transportation entered into a purchase and sale agreement for the property, a former bulk fuel terminal and asphalt production plant. At the time, WSDOT intended to use the site for a multimodal transportation center known as Edmonds Crossing, but that plan has been abandoned. Since 2017, contractors for Chevron — which purchased the property from Unocal — have been working under a Department of Ecology order to clean up contamination on the site.

City of Edmonds officials and marsh advocates have been hopeful that the city could eventually purchase the property from WSDOT, which would assist with both the city’s marsh restoration and Willow Creek daylighting efforts and promote the return of salmon runs there.

Joe Scordino, an Edmonds Marsh advocate and leader of the Edmonds Stream Team, said that Ecology’s announcement on final cleanup requirements has been delayed numerous times since early 2022. That has raised concerns that Chevron has not cleaned the site sufficiently to allow its use for nearshore restoration and salmon recovery, Scordino said.

This most recent delay “acknowledged that soil contamination remains on the site in spite of over six years of use of a dual-phase extraction system that is supposed to remove and treat petroleum contaminants in soil and groundwater,” Scordino said.

The Department of Ecology announcement does indicate, though, that delaying final cleanup determinations will allow them time to work with Chevron on a solution to minimize contaminant exposure to wildlife, plants and soil organisms, and provide a sustainable net benefit to the environment, he added.

Scordino said he hopes “that means that the site actually will be suitable sometime in the future for a ‘non-toxic salmon channel’ across the site to allow salmon in Puget Sound to again access the Edmonds Marsh and its creeks.”

Once the required documents are finalized, a 45-day public comment period will be scheduled, during which time Ecology will host a simultaneous public meeting (in-person and online via Zoom) to provide project information and answer questions.