Bay Wood Products

A Puget Sound Initiative Site - Reaching the goal of a healthy, sustainable Puget Sound.

Last update 04/21/21

Partial cleanup work is complete! Shoreline cleanup and habitat restoration work was completed in the spring of 2021. This partial cleanup, called an interim action, is the second round of cleanup work conducted at the Bay Wood site. The work included:

• 1,300 linear feet of shoreline restoration, regrading the shoreline slope and planting native plants.
• 2.300 linear feet of habitat restoration in the upland shoreline buffer.
• Removal and disposal of about 1,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and 5,000 tons of material containing anthropogenic waste (primarily wood waste, concrete, and quarry spall).

This cleanup work was largely funded by a Remedial Action Grant from Ecology. These grants support local governments conducting environmental cleanups across Washington State.

This cleanup work prepares the Bay Wood site for future development including industrial infrastructure and public access. If you have questions about the future of the Bay Wood Products site, you can check the Port of Everett’s website or contact Catherine Soper, the Port of Everett’s Public Affairs Manager.

The Bay Wood Products Site is a former sawmill and log handling and storage facility. It is located at 200 West Marine View Drive, near Maulsby Mudflats at the mouth of the Snohomish River.

Lumber and mill operations began on this site around 1936. In 1979, Bay Wood Products, Inc. removed the sawmill and used the site for log handling and storage until 1994. Site features during Bay Wood Products’ operations included office and shop buildings, a covered shed, oil drums, electrical transformers, above-ground fuel storage tanks, and log rafts. These features have been removed, and the site is vacant.

Site investigations found several contaminants, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (cPAHs) in upland soil. Wood waste, which can be considered a contaminant because of its ability to smother near-shore habitat and alter water chemistry in harmful ways, was found embedded in nearby sediments

PCB-contaminated soil was removed from the site in 1985 and 1993 and much of the wood waste accumulated in the upland area was removed in 1995.

In 2013, an interim action took place on the site. Soil stockpiled on site that was contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (a carcinogenic chemical compound associated with coal, crude oil, and gasoline) was removed and transferred to an approved
landfill.

Learn more about Washington's cleanup process.  

Ecology and the Port of Everett entered into a formal legal agreement called an Agreed Order in October 2008. The Agreed Order was most recently updated in 2020. It requires the Port to develop a Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study Report to understand the nature and extent of site contamination, conduct specific interim action cleanup work, and then to draft a Cleanup Action Plan.

Following two stages of data gathering, the Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study reports were completed and presented for public comment in 2011. In response to comments we received, a third stage of data collection took place during 2011 and 2012.

The Port of Everett is developing an addendum to the Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study to integrate the new data. Finalizing that report and the Cleanup Action Plan are the next steps of cleanup for the Bay Wood site.