BNSF Parkwater Railyard

In 2022, Ecology reviewed six years of monitoring data and found soil and groundwater met state standards. No further cleanup is required, except maintaining soil caps. You can learn more in the Periodic Review Report.

We removed the site from Washington’s Hazardous Sites List and the groundwater covenant following a 30-day public comment period held May 16 through June 15, 2022. We responded to one comment. 

The site is an active railyard covering about 130 acres. BNSF Railway Company and other railroads have run the railyard since the early 1900s. Until 1959, it supported railyard operations including fueling, maintenance and repair, intermodal operations, and switching. When the roundhouse was demolished in 1959, these activities continued in a lesser capacity until 2004 when most fueling moved to a new facility in Hauser, Idaho.

From 2004 through today, refueling, maintenance, and switching operations continue. Western Fruit Express Company’s maintenance facility is also on site. The facility is used for rail car and equipment storage and maintenance. About 3 acres of the site were leased to other industries, including Koch Materials, Tri-State Oil, Continental Coal Company, Service Asphalt, and Blackline.

The site had underground and aboveground storage tanks, primarily for diesel fuel but also for waste oil, gasoline, and cleaning solvent storage. Only above-ground storage tanks remain: one 5,000-gallon waste oil, one 1,000-gallon lubricating oil, two 1,000-gallon waste oil, one 300,000-gallon diesel, one 25,000-gallon lubricating oil, and one 22,000-gallon waste oil. Six smaller above-ground tanks holding gasoline, diesel, heating oil, and waste oil are used at the Western Fruit Express facility.

Petroleum products were found in groundwater and a variety of contaminants were found in soil: construction debris, metals, naphthalene, petroleum products, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and polychlorinated biphenyls.

Groundwater cleanup began in March 2009. A treatment system used air sparging (increases oxygen flow) and soil vapor extraction (vacuums contaminants) to decrease the petroleum plume. By June 2010, petroleum had decreased significantly. In January 2012, the system was shut down to see if petroleum would increase. Remaining petroleum still required cleanup, but significant increases didn’t occur. So the groundwater treatment system was permanently shut down and monitoring continued.

Soil cleanup occurred between September 2013 and February 2015. One contaminated area was covered with an asphalt cap, and two more were covered with 6-inch gravel caps. Contaminated soil from all other areas was excavated and disposed at a landfill. Ecology filed environmental covenants for soil and groundwater. We approved the final cleanup report in 2017.