Mt Baker Properties

Updated March 2023

The Mt. Baker Housing Association (MBHA) has been working since 2016 with Ecology oversight to cleanup this contaminated site. Soil and groundwater at the Mount Baker Properties site were impacted by former business activities. The Cleanup Action Plan (CAP) was implemented at the site in 2020. The cleanup actions included excavation of contaminated source soil, groundwater treatment, and monitored natural attenuation. Excavation of contaminated soil was completed in late 2020, two phases of groundwater treatment were completed, and monitoring has begun. Cleanup construction is also complete.

Redevelopment construction began in early 2021. Building construction on both the north and south sides of the site are close to complete. Groundwater treatment and monitoring will continue at the site until concentrations of contaminants in the groundwater plume meet requirements of the CAP and Ecology determines that the cleanup is complete. Assistance from Ecology’s Affordable Housing Grant program has made this cleanup possible.

Over the last several decades, businesses operating at the site released hazardous substances. The site includes all areas where there is contamination from releases at Mount Baker Cleaners and a former retail gas station. Contamination from petroleum and solvents (volatile organic compounds or VOCs) is mixed at this site.

Former Gas Service Station Parcel (south side of S McClellan Street):

A gas station operated at 2800 Martin Luther King Jr. Way S from the mid-1950s to mid-2000s (most recently Phillips 66 #070644). From the 1990s until 2004, the property was used as an auto repair business. Environmental sampling also found solvent contamination on the property. Three underground storage tanks were removed in 1989. In 2005 other gas/service station equipment was removed and a petroleum-related release was reported to Ecology in August 2005. In 2005–06, several soil and groundwater borings were advanced. In 2005, five ozone injection points were installed, ozone was applied. This system operated until 2007, when additional treatment was conducted through in-situ chemical oxidation. Since 2010, Phillips 66 has conducted additional sampling at the property through Ecology’s Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP), but no additional cleanup. 

McClellan Parcels (north side of S McClellan Street):

The other four properties purchased by MBHA, including the Mt. Baker Cleaners property, are collectively referred to as the “McClellan Parcels”. Mt. Baker Cleaners has been operating at 2864 S McClellan Street since the early 1950s. It is the source of dry cleaning related contamination beneath the McClellan Parcels and other surrounding properties and rights of way. Chlorinated and non-chlorinated VOCs have been detected. There have been no remedial actions associated with this property.

• Redevelopment Opportunity Zones (ROZs)
• Brownfield Renewal Authorities
• Brownfield Redevelopment Trust Fund Account

• Create a “brownfield renewal authority” with broad powers to facilitate cleanup and redevelopment (see RCW 70.105D.160).
• Access a “brownfield redevelopment trust fund account,” created within the state’s budget, which can be used to secure long-term funding for cleanup (see RCW 70.105D.140).

• Enter into agreed orders with prospective purchasers to accelerate the study of sites with redevelopment potential.
• Enter into mixed funding settlement agreements with prospective purchasers where public funding is commensurate with a public benefit other than cleanup.
• Prioritize grants for integrated planning and area-wide groundwater remedial actions within these zones.