By Brian Mittge, The Chronicle, 3/14/2002
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Nearly a half million dollars from a state tax on petroleum and waste materials will go to continued testing for cancer-causing chemicals in the groundwater beneath Forest, a rural community south of Chehalis.
Chlorinated solvents, possibly leaked from the Lewis County Central Shop decades ago, have tainted the shallow aquifer in the Jackson Highway crossroads. Lewis County will have to pony up $149,000 in matching funds for the state money.
The recent $448,000 grant from the Department of Ecology is in addition to an earlier $735,000 grant to pay for initial site investigations and the installation of a short-term water treatment system.
''Lewis County truly appreciates the engineering and funding assistance provided by the Washington Department of Ecology. Without it we would have been hard-pressed to solve this problem and return the aquifer to its natural condition,'' said Lewis County Director of General Administration Larry Keeton.
Some of the money went to work this week, as contractors found space in the cramped Central Shop area to test soil and groundwater samples.
The goal is to find more information about how the contaminated water will spread underground and, it is hoped, to find the exact spot where the chemicals seeped into the ground — and remove any contamination sources that might still exist.
Workers will pump from the out-of-service county shop well while observing the effect of the pumping in nearby monitoring wells, according to a county press release.
The pumped water will be stored in 16,000-gallon steel treatment tanks on the north side of the site.
The collected water will be decontaminated using an air sparging method, transferred to tanker trucks, and disposed of into the Chehalis sewer system under a permit issued jointly by the city of Chehalis and the Department of Ecology.
''No water will be discharged to either the on-site storm sewers or septic systems,'' the release notes.
An on-site laboratory will analyze both shallow and deep soils to identify the nature and extent of potential volatile organic compounds in the suspected source area near the center of the site.
Lewis County is the only potentially liable party identified in the water contamination, with theories that the chemicals might have come from solvents used in cleaning vehicles and equipment in the '60s and '70s.
Workers at the shop and one nearby family drink water from new Chehalis city water pipes installed last year.
Other families with wells that show minor contamination are prohibited from tapping into the new pipes by a clause in state Growth Management Act rules.
To prevent urban sprawl — otherwise known as the improper extension of urban-level services and density to rural areas — the Forest-area homes cannot tap into city water unless their wells show chemical contamination of 5 parts per billion.
A handful of neighbors have trace amounts of trichloroethene, up to about 3 parts per billion, in their water, so they don't qualify.
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Brian Mittge covers local government for The Chronicle. He may be reached by e-mail at bmittge@chronline.com, or by telephoning 807-8237.
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