Cleanup work at Spokane site includes building demolition

SPOKANE - A major cleanup to remove chemical contamination and asbestos starts this month at the former City Parcel facility on North Cook Street in Spokane. A contractor hired by the Washington Department of Ecology will start by removing asbestos materials from the site. Then the building at the site will be torn down. After demolition, soils contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) will be removed. The demolition is needed to fully clean up the site so the pollution won’t harm people and the environment. “It’s absolutely vital to clean up these PCBs to protect the Spokane-Rathdrum Prairie aquifer as well as the Spokane River itself,” said Mike Hibbler, who manages Ecology’s Toxics Cleanup Program in Spokane. “PCBs are persistent in the environment. They pose a serious threat to people who live and work here and to our environment.” This project continues Ecology’s efforts to remove PCBs at various sites. For example, Ecology already cleaned up PCBs at the old General Electric facility on Trent Avenue and at Kaiser Aluminum’s Trentwood facility. PCBs contaminated portions of the City Parcel building and property before 1980 when the facility was used to repair and recycle electrical transformers. PCBs are a mix of man-made chemicals used in the past as coolants and lubricants in transformers, electrical appliances, fluorescent lights, capacitors, printing inks, and other uses. The United States banned the manufacture of PCBs in 1977 because of evidence that they can harm human health. The asbestos removal will take place mainly inside the City Parcel building. Asbestos materials are found in the building insulation, window caulking and glazing, flooring, and caulking on the roof. Workers in certain areas will wear protective clothing and respirators. Demolition debris and excavated soil will be placed in trucks, covered, secured, and hauled along Cook Street to a facility permitted to receive contaminated materials. Dust control and air quality will be monitored during demolition. Ecology expects work to be finished by the end of August. After that, a 6-foot-high security fence will be installed around the City Parcel property.