Cosmopolis pulp mill owner’s ‘absurd ignorance’

The article “How polluted is the Cosmopolis’ defunct pulp mill? We don’t know, Washington state says” underscores what I believe is the absolute urgency for someone to finally find out.

For the record, I conducted 2,000 assessments of potentially hazardous waste sites statewide over a 24-year period with the Washington Department of Ecology’s Toxics Cleanup Program, in conjunction with our four Regional Offices and 19 county health districts/departments. And, as well, coordinated with the U.S. EPA Region 10 in placing three Washington sites on its federal Superfund List.

I would be abjectly remiss in my responsibility as an educated citizen if I did not state what I personally believe, based on many years of related experience, is the seriousness that this confirmed contaminated property poses to the local community — both from a human health threat, but also to environmental receptors.

This site could not have been situated in a worse location, considering potential threats from residual hazardous chemical contaminants, as there is a substantial concentrated population on one side and a major surface water receptor on the other where outflows from its sludge ponds into the Chehalis River have already documented elevated levels of such known cancer-causing compounds as dioxin and furans — per your article.

Our local relatively heavy rainfall has likely washed who knows how many, and which ones, other hazardous contaminants into the likely shallow groundwater, which eventually makes its way underground to nearby surface waters.

Mill owner/spokesman Richard Bassett blew me away with his absurd ignorance of the absolute seriousness of ascertaining, ASAP, how badly contaminated this property is, and with what, when he had the audacity to say, “How can there be anything significant to clean up when it (the mill) hasn’t been running for two years?”

It has been nearly 17 years since I retired from Ecology, so I am unaware of the policies/politics that go on between those two agencies these days. However, my closing thought is that if the state does not really get going on fully assessing the threats to human health and the environment posed by this site, maybe local citizens could petition USEPA Region 10 to list this as a Superfund site?

Though, this may not be a practical choice for many locals, as it would severely impact property values. Best to keep the heat on Olympia.

Michael Spencer

Raymond