Business ordered to allow cleanup on property

The Washington State Department of Ecology announced Thursday that it has ordered a northeast Spokane business to allow cleanup efforts on its property near the Spokane River.

Brown Building Materials, 112 N. Erie St., has not allowed access to the site for cleanup activities of coal tar waste found on the site, and the state has had to force its hand, said Jani Gilbert, a DOE spokeswoman.

Previous studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the state Department of Transportation, Avista Corp. and Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. discovered the waste on as much as 3 acres of the property.

Under state law governing the cleanup of pollution, former owners, including the railway, Avista and Spokane River Properties – which operates as Brown Building Materials – are responsible for cleaning up the site, Gilbert said.

“They didn’t cause the pollution. It’s just that our laws require past and present owners to help with the cleanup,” Gilbert said.

Avista and BNSF entered into an agreement with the DOE in 2002 to conduct the cleanup, but Brown Building Materials did not, Gilbert said.

Now Avista and BNSF need to get on the site to begin the cleanup process, and Brown Building Materials has denied them access.

“Contractors need to get on to the property to carry out the cleanup,” said Flora Goldstein, a toxics cleanup manager for the DOE.

“It is unfortunate that we have to force the issue, but we have an obligation to protect the public and the environment.”

Under the enforcement order, Brown Building Materials must allow crews on the site to begin cleanup, and it must place deed restriction on the title that would prohibit activities on the property that might interfere with maintaining the cleanup after it is complete.

The chemicals on the site – primarily a class of hydrocarbon known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons – are associated with gas manufacturing and coal-tar processing once done on the site.

Avista bought the property in 1958, and the coal gas plant that produced the tar was demolished the next year.

In 1978, Avista sold the property to Richard Brown. Brown also leases a portion from BNSF.

Investigations show underground water outside the boundaries of the site, and the Spokane River has not been harmed by the contamination.

“We have been trying to move this forward for some time. We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously,” said Hugh Imhof, an Avista spokesman.

All three companies have been trying to find a resolution to the cleanup effort, but Brown does not agree with the restrictions that would be placed on the property during the cleanup, said Doug Pottratz, environmental complaints manager with Avista

“We just weren’t able to come to an agreement, and we notified the state of that,” Pottratz said.

The state sent a letter to the company giving it until June 30 to allow for the cleanup, Pottratz said.

The company did not comply, and the enforcement order was issued.

Avista estimated the cost of the cleanup would be $1.2 million.

Brown Building Materials is not responsible for any of the costs because it did not enter the agreement with the DOE, but it could face financial penalties and legal action for not complying with the enforcement order, Gilbert said.

A reporter’s telephone call to Brown Building Materials went unanswered Thursday.