Anacortes Port of Dakota Creek

A PUGET SOUND INITIATIVE Site - Reaching the goal of a healthy, sustainable Puget Sound.

The Dakota Creek site is an active shipyard that is used for vessel construction and maintenance. Dakota Creek Industries currently leases the site from the Port of Anacortes. Since around 1879, the site has been used for maritime-related industrial activities like shipping, shipbuilding, repairs, and vessel and fuel storage. These activities have resulted in soil, groundwater, and sediment contamination. Other potential sources of contamination at the site include previous outfall discharges from the former Scott paper mill and City of Anacortes municipal sewer prior to disconnection.

Before 2008, the marine area of the site featured multiple piers, docks, and marine railway boatlifts. One marine railway was removed in the early 1990s and the other was removed in 2008. This second railway removal was part of a redevelopment project that also took out two docks and dredged sediment from the waterway to make it deeper, reinforced the shoreline, and built a new pier.

During this redevelopment an interim action cleanup was completed to remove around 26,000 cubic yards of contaminated marine sediment and upland soil from the marine area and land. Contaminants that remain at the site are located in upland soils and groundwater. Contaminants include arsenic, nickel, and carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (cPAHs).

A Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study (RI/FS) was performed in 2020 to describe the extent and nature of contamination at the site and present potential options for how to clean it up. Following the RI/FS, a Cleanup Action Plan was drafted, describing the final cleanup action work for the remaining contamination in the soil and groundwater at the site, and explains the requirements that the cleanup must meet.

After finalizing the cleanup plans, the soil excavation and removal at the site could begin as soon as fall 2022, and will be coordinated to minimize disruption to the ongoing shipyard operations. To perform this work, crews will break up and remove pavement that is currently in place, then excavate and remove contaminated soil from the accessible areas of the site that are most likely to impact the groundwater if left uncontrolled. Any contaminated soil that remains will be capped with pavement to prevent people and wildlife from coming in contact with it. Long-term monitoring of the groundwater will then be put in place to ensure that contamination does not migrate offsite and create a risk of exposure.