July 29, 2003

Environmental Watch: White new enviro director at WSDOT

OLYMPIA -- The state Department of Transportation appointed long-time state water quality expert Megan White as its new director of Environmental Services. She replaces former director Jerry Alb.

White, a civil engineer, has been with the Department of Ecology for 18 years, recently managing its water quality program. Ecology special assistant Dick Wallace will serve as interim water quality program manager after White starts the new position Sept. 2.

She will lead the team that makes sure WSDOT's facilities, projects and on-going operations comply with federal and state environmental laws.

Blasland, Bouck & Lee adds staff

SEATTLE -- Environmental consulting firm Blasland, Bouck & Lee added a geologist and a civil engineer to its Seattle office.

Pamela Sargent has more than 20 years of civil and environmental engineering experience in the public and private sectors. She was project engineer for sediment remediation for Tacoma's Thea Foss Waterway Superfund site and developed a design to enlarge the Blair Waterway turning basin to accommodate deeper-draft container vessels.

BBL hired Shannon Dunn as a senior project geochemist for the firm's Seattle and Portland offices. She has worked with aerospace contractors, mining companies, plywood manufacturers, metals recyclers, landfill operators and the U.S. Department of Defense. She will concentrate on sediment quality issues associated with chemodynamics and bioturbation.

Energy nonprofit hiring building project staff

PORTLAND -- The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance hired Curt Nichols as project coordinator for two commercial building initiative projects. Nichols will focus on energy efficiency in health care facilities and grocery stores in Washington, Oregon and other northwest states.

Nichols spent 11 years as energy manager for the city of Portland, managing the City Energy Challenge program and annual BEST Business Awards. He also worked for 11 years with the Oregon Office of Energy, Eugene Water & Electric Board and Pacific Gas & Electric.

Sculpture park cleanup gets $2.1M

OLYMPIA -- The state Department of Ecology awarded a $2.1 million grant to the Museum Development Authority to help the Seattle Art Museum turn a former oil terminal into Olympic Sculpture Park.

The grant will cover half of the cost of site cleanup, which will include a cap of clean fill over areas where contaminated soil could not be removed. Cleanup work will be coordinated with the park development project, scheduled to start in 2004. Opening is planned for 2005.

The Seattle Art Museum plans to build the park near Myrtle Edwards Park at the former Unocal Marketing Terminal. Unocal removed more than 100,000 tons of contaminated soil before the museum bought the 8.5-acre site in 1999.

Designed by Weiss/Manfredi Architects, the park will provide pedestrian access to waterfront by bridging railroad tracks and Elliott Avenue, while incorporating outdoor sculpture.

Ecology offers help with new water rules

OLYMPIA -- With the first major overhaul of Washington's surface water-quality rules taking effect Aug. 1, the state Department of Ecology is highlighting some key points -- and places to get technical help.

The rules establish measures to protect the quality of the state's surface waters. They highlight water uses designated for protection in specific water bodies; criteria to protect those uses; and an antidegradation program providing further protection for pristine waters. The rules also explain how to use mixing zones, compliance schedules, attainability analyses and other compliance tools.

For technical assistance, call Mark Hicks at (360) 407-6477 or e-mail mhic461@ecy.wa.gov. For more help, call Ecology's Office of Regulatory Assistance at (360) 407-7037; Northwest Regional Office at (425) 649-7000; Southwest Regional Office at (360) 407-6300; Central Regional Office at (509) 575-2490; or Eastern Regional Office at (509) 456-2926.

To read the revised rule, responses to public comments and other administrative and technical details, visit www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/swqs.

2nd quarter Ecology fines total $356,387

OLYMPIA -- The state Department of Ecology issued $356,287 in fines during the second quarter of this year. The tally includes fines of $1,000 or more.

The biggest fine went to Safeway for discharging 1,075 gallons of diesel into Lake Bellevue and a nearby drainage ditch in 2001. Ecology also fined Nichols Brothers Boat Builders $47,000 for building and installing a 600-foot-long, 20-foot-wide marine launch structure in Freeland in Island County without a shoreline permit.

The Tacoma Steam Plant was fined $25,000 for improperly managing and disposing of large amounts of incinerator ash, and Seavestco Inc. was fined $13,000 for releasing silt-laden water from the Wellington Hills construction project in Woodinville into a drainage ditch connected to Bear Creek.

Other King, Pierce and Snohomish county fines went to Product Plating Inc., Trident Seafoods, Goodrich Aviation Technical Services, the Washington Department of Transportation.

Aug. 14-15 seminar on NW power issues

SEATTLE -- A seminar next month will explore Northwest power issues from legal, utility, water, business, government, consultant and environmental perspectives.

On Aug. 14 and Aug. 15 at Renaissance Seattle Hotel, "Northwest Power Supplies -- Emerging Issues for a Power Supply Future" will discuss siting, financing, market risks, wind power, hydro re-licensing, transmission systems, natural gas and other power-related topics.

Presenters will include representatives of Energy Advisory Group, American Wind Energy Association, Puget Sound Energy, the Snohomish Public Utilities District, Preston Gates & Ellis, Robert D. Kahn & Co., the Bonneville Power Administration, Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission and other groups.

For registration information, call Law Seminars International at (206) 621-1938 or (800) 854-8009 or e-mail registrar@lawseminars.com.

County sued over erosion control

SEATTLE -- A May Valley man is suing King County for using woody debris to control erosion, the King County Journal reported.

Activist Chuck Pillon filed a lawsuit in King County Court asking public health and safety officials to review the erosion-control method, which Pillon claims endangers boaters and swimmers.

According to the lawsuit, a Maple Valley child nearly drowned in woody debris in the Cedar River last May and now uses a walker and cannot speak. A spokesperson for the county's Department of Natural Resources told the newspaper there was no woody debris where the near-drowning occurred and said a similar lawsuit by Pillon was dismissed last year.