Cleaning up: Skykomish cleanup moving forward

We're working with the community of Skykomish and BNSF Railway on cleanup in the town of Skykomish and invite you to participate. You can provide comments on a legal document and a cleanup action plan.

To learn more and meet those involved in the cleanup, we also invite you to attend an online public meeting on Nov. 28, 2022.

Located in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, 49 miles east of Everett on the South Fork of the Skykomish River, Skykomish was founded as a railroad town and was home to railway maintenance and fueling facilities since the 1890s. Until 1974, the Great Northern Railway (a predecessor company to BNSF Railway Co.) operated the facility. The railway maintenance and fueling activities resulted in petroleum contamination extending underground from the railyard, beneath the town, and into the South Fork of the Skykomish River.

Many years of study, characterization, and community visioning since the 1990s went into building a cleanup plan for the town. Major cleanup efforts happened between 2006 and 2017.

A major feature of the current Skykomish cleanup project is a barrier wall and treatment system along the railyard called the Hydraulic Control and Containment (HCC) System. Ecology approved a pilot study in January 2019 to evaluate the HCC System's passive treatment operation (allowing the carbon media to passively treat groundwater without the active pumps).

The amendment to the legal agreement and the cleanup action plan allows for additional evaluation of the passive operation of the HCC System. If the results continue to demonstrate that cleanup levels have been met, the passive HCC System operation may continue permanently upon approval from Ecology.

Review documents and submit your comments

We invite you to review documents:

• An amendment to a legal agreement.
• Cleanup action plan.

You can submit your comments during the public comment period: Nov. 21 through Dec. 22.

Online public meeting

We invite you to attend a public meeting via Zoom to learn more about project information and ask questions. Ecology's meeting will immediately follow the Skykomish Town Council meeting scheduled to end at 6 pm.

The online public meeting is Mon., Nov. 28, at 6 p.m.

• Please register for the public meeting.
• After entering an email address, participants will receive a unique Zoom link to join the meeting.
• Call-in options are also available when registering online.

Cleaning upContamination cleanupNorthwest Region