Pulling into the west entrance of the now-defunct Harbor Paper mill, the road is lined with what looks like a large hill, blocking the view to the mill structure.
A skid loader digs a shovelful from the hill and tips the load into a surprisingly clean dump truck. The hill is cut flat where the shovel has been skimming away the soot, like the wall of a life-sized sandcastle in progress.
Keeping straight, the hill passes by the outside of the passenger window, but a right turn before the hill puts it to the left side, where the hill is covered in short thorny bushes.
From the top, mist can be seen enveloping the harbor to the south. To the east, water treatment tanks are nearby with the port visible in the distance, and to the west, the mill, the few structures intact are frailly standing like skeletons, poised to fall down, scheduled to be felled, surrounded by piles of rubble.
It looks like a hill and feels like a hill — the Grays Harbor PUD Ford Expedition doesn’t sink and the tires grab onto the surface like they would on ordinary dirt — but it’s actually an ash pile.
Years of combined solid waste from the mill were sent to the pile, discarded without foresight, and now it’s a tedious and costly project making up for years of what was, in hindsight, carelessness.
The ash pile isn’t the only waste needing removal: South of the treatment tanks (or “clarifiers” as they are known, where sediment laden water was left to settle, drained and then the solids removed) is a hole in the earth, deep and wide enough to house a factory warehouse. Mucky and wet solid waste is piled in two rows in the middle of the pit.
The PUD inherited the mess. It was part of a deal to keep the mill running under Grays Harbor Paper, which purchased it from Rayonier, and when the mill finally was shut down, left behind was an estimated 105,585 tons of waste, from Rayonier, Grays Harbor Paper and Harbor Paper, the company that owned it when it closed for good.
Some of the waste can be put to good use. The sand ash, some 31,265 tons of it, can be used as fertilizer.
The rest — 10,284 tons of primary clarifier solids, 14,684 tons of secondary treatment solids, 30,368 tons of boiler bottom ash, and 18,984 tons of bark and rock mixture — must be removed from the site. (All numbers are estimates, official numbers will be known when the cleanup is complete.)
There are no suitable landfills in Grays Harbor County, so the waste must be trucked to Cowlitz County.
“The difficulty of the cleanup is getting the waste to where it needs to go,” PUD Communications Director Ian Cope said.
Each day, two dump trucks will be loaded and make the round trip to Cowlitz County, about 200 miles.
Extra care taken
To add another level of difficulty, the trucks must leave the site clean, relatively speaking.
According to regulations, none of the waste can leave the site except for disposal — the regulations apply to even tracks left behind by trucks as they leave the site.
The trucks must stay on the concrete so the tires don’t pick up excess ash as they would if they drove up the ash pile. The skid loader does most of the work.
The entire pile — the hill — is about half sand ash (on the south side) and half bottom ash (the north).
When the loader digs in the middle of the pile, the distinction is noticeable: the sand ash is fine, like dark beach sand, while the bottom ash is made of large grains and clumps. Within the bottom ash are “contaminants” — nails, brackets and random pieces of debris that couldn’t be burned away.
While the treated water, some 28-million gallons, was pumped from the holding basins (the deep pit) into the City of Hoquiam’s sewage treatment facility, primary clarifier solids and secondary treatment solids (the mucky piles) are now left behind in the pit to dry before they, too, are hauled to Cowlitz County.
The bush-covered berm near the ash pile also is clarifier solids drying before being hauled away.
What started out as a costly operation remains costly, but there is a bright side.
The PUD staff have worked to bring the estimated cost down from as much as $10 million to about $4 million.
Special Projects Manager John Pellegrini examined several options before determining a self-haul plan was the most cost-effective solution. The PUD is using rented trucks and has hired two drivers from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union 77.
“We have an excellent crew,” Pellegrini said.
The sand ash hopefully will be given away. The PUD will deliver the sand ash at no cost.
“Free delivery was cheaper than disposal in the landfill,” Pellegrini said.
The sand ash is 70 percent silica and contains sufficient amounts of pot ash and some calcium.
The PUD plans to have the site completely cleaned of solid waste by February 2016.
In June, Hero Demolition LLC signed a contract with the PUD for the demolition and removal of man-made structures at the site.
The City of Aberdeen has given a verbal commitment to take clean rubble (cinder blocks and concrete) for use in roadwork, Pellegrini said.
“That’s a win for all of us, and it will save the PUD a lot of money,” he said.
Saving money while sufficiently cleaning the site is the ultimate goal.
“We don’t want to do it for any more than the cost that it needs to be done,” Cope said.
And while the operation is far from over, progress is being made and costs are lower than initial estimates.
“It’s still pretty early in the process, but it’s going well so far,” Cope said.
No comments:
Post a Comment