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Partly cloudy. High 63F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph..
Partly cloudy skies. Low 51F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph.
Lincoln County commissioners approved a reimbursement request for cleanup work already completed at a contaminated salvage yard between Newport and Toledo, allowing the county to move forward with full remediation of the site.
Lincoln County acquired the deed to King Salvage, located off Highway 20 about one-half mile east of Fruitvale Road, in 2017 from the 2011 tax foreclosure list. The approximately 8.5-acre property was operated as a salvage yard for 30 years, and it was on the radar of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for more than a decade before the foreclosure.
According to the Oregon DEQ environmental cleanup site database, the property consists of two parcels, the smaller of which contained a two-story residential dwelling, and the larger held the salvage operation — a pole barn, automobile crusher, above-ground storage tank for diesel fuel.
The salvage portion also held numerous vehicles in various stages of deconstruction, including trucks, buses, light autos, recreational camper trailers and motor homes; stockpiled appliances and refrigerators; stockpiled automobile and truck tires, some of which contain metal rims; a burn barrel; debris and waste piles; several heating fuel storage tanks; and numerous unlabeled 55-gallon, 5-gallon, and less than 5-gallon containers in various conditions and volume levels of assumed recovered auto and heating oils.
The state environmental watchdog was first alerted to the property by the Oregon Department of Transportation, which complained in November of 2000 about the site releasing oil. A DEQ inspection confirmed petroleum contamination and heavily impacted soils near the car crusher. It was added to the “confirmed release” list in 2001, and in 2006, DEQ undertook an enforcement action, fining owners and requiring they mitigate the release of hazardous waste.
In April 2007, according to the DEQ database, there was a fire at the site, and when Toledo firefighters arrived they found about 700 tires (of 10s of thousands on the property) and at least one vehicle were on fire. The fire department used approximately 44,000 gallons of water extinguishing the blaze, possibly spreading hazardous materials to the surrounding environment even with attempts to control runoff.
When DEQ inspectors visited the site in 2008 to evaluate compliance with the 2006 enforcement action and another in 2007 (a total of $55,000 in fines), “it was apparent that King Salvage had extended little effort to comply with corrective actions,” according to an October 2008 department memo to the EPA. There were still large piles of waste and numerous vehicles, tires, and automotive batteries, as well as dozens of containers of suspected oil (many of those containers of “questionable integrity”), the memo says.
Of particular concern was the area near the crusher, which showed ongoing leakage of oil and other fluids from the engine, its hydraulic system and/or crushed vehicles that was being released into the soil. An inspector also made note of an unnamed tributary flowing through the site down the access road, especially prevalent near the crusher, leading to Beaver Creek, which flows into Depot Slough before meeting the Yaquina River near Toledo.
After determining that additional enforcement action against the owners was unlikely to have any different outcome, DEQ’s memo to the EPA asked the agency to step in and stabilize the site using Oil Pollution Acts funds to prevent impacts to Beaver Creek, a productive salmon-spawning stream, and the surrounding ecosystem.
The EPA sent in a Superfund Technical Assessment and Response Team in November 2008 to inspect and take samples. Testing confirmed the presence of arsenic, chromium, lead, iron and petroleum hydrocarbons exceeding “risk-based concentration levels.” The team also documented extensive oil sheen across large areas of the ground surface,” according to the Superfund team’s report.
The agency initiated a time-critical removal action and in May 2009 started cleanup focused on the oil contamination, removing drums and containers, scraping about 500 tons of soil near the crusher and digging throughout the site. The crew stored any other hazardous material it found in an underground tank but was directed not to search for it in “the mountains of debris.”
DEQ continued remediation effort at the site and assessed an additional $30,000 fine against the owners in 2010.
Once in its possession, the county worked in cooperation with DEQ to further clean the site, including removal of 26 vehicles, 80 tons of tires, three above-ground storage tanks and a multitude of drums and totes.
A request for reimbursement discussed during Wednesday’s regular meeting of the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners would pay back $80,000 of an $81,117 bill from Dahl Disposal for hauling away more than 1,600 yards — more than 300 tons — of trash and tires in 2019.
Ryan Helmke, in his third month with Lincoln County property management, told commissioners he’d learned through a DEQ contact of an outstanding Business Oregon grant for the project that was approved in 2020. Business Oregon wanted to close out the grant so it could open up more funding to complete the cleanup. Because the amount exceeded $50,000, the board had to authorize collection of the grant funds.
Both Commissioners Claire Hall and Kaety Jacobson noted the striking improvement at the property, though there was still work to be done.
Hall said she was frequently asked what the county’s plans are for the property, and she asked if any plan was in place.
Jacobson, who oversees public works, said DEQ required at least an informal plan before authorizing funds for cleanup.
“Given its zoning, which is timber-conservation, and also given that, even though it’s going to be cleaned, there’s obviously been a lot of environmental damage done to this piece of property, there are sort of limited options that you can do,” Jacobson said. “At the time, the loose plan we made was to work in conjunction with the Lincoln Community Forest … The existing property they own is not far from this property. They don’t conjoin, but they’re not far.”
She said the organization had some idea for uses, such as timber drying, which would comport with its zoning.
“It’s probably going back into some sort of conservation,” she said.
Commissioners unanimously approved the reimbursement request.
A DEQ spokesperson provided documents with more details on the history of the cleanup and the next steps just before the News-Times print deadline. An update on what happens next will be published in the next edition.
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