Project Details

Environmental Remediation
Permitting & Engineering Design

Client

Port of Everett

Date

2021-2022

Location

Everett, WA

Awards

2021 ACEC Engineering Excellence Award

Team Members

Dylan Frazer, LG

Bay Wood Shoreline Restoration and Cleanup

The Port of Everett has focused redevelopment efforts on former waterfront mill and industrial sites, using its comprehensive regulatory and environmental-restoration strategy. The Bay Wood project is a prime demonstration of the Port’s ability to deliver transformational results using a focused, coordinated approach. The Bay Wood property is a former waterfront mill site, located at the northern end of Everett’s waterfront that had been inactive since 1994 when the mill was decommissioned. The property has undergone several historic phases of soil cleanup led by the Port, to prepare it for redevelopment. The most recent cleanup occurred in 2020 through 2021 and involved cleaning up and restoring the shoreline and removing soil contamination from portions of the site. This most recent project was funded by the Washington State Department of Ecology using a rare, 90%, remedial action cleanup grant. With implementation of this project, the Port turned an unused, unmarketable, contaminated, waterfront property into a highly attractive, market-ready parcel ready to generate between 130 and 300 new family-wage jobs — on a fast track, and against the background of COVID-19 economic challenges. The key to unlocking the economic potential of this site was the nearly $2.3 million shoreline restoration and cleanup, because it accomplishes the following triple-bottom-line outcomes:

Creates salmon habitat at the mouth of the Snohomish River
Provides a new shoreline public-access nature trail
Cleans up the environment, removing a serious impediment to potential developers
Enables economic development by increasing developable land

The Bay Wood Shoreline Restoration, Cleanup, and Economic Development project exemplifies the Port of Everett’s triple-bottom-line mission to provide economic, environmental, and community benefit

The Challenge

For nearly 30 years, the Bay Wood site sat unused and unproductive as a result of environmental challenges. Preparing the site for redevelopment would be a significant undertaking for the Port both operationally and financially. The project cost more than $2 million and had to be conducted on a fast track to dovetail with the property developer’s timeline.

Our Approach

Landau led the characterization of contamination, environmental engineering, and Ecology coordination and documentation. Although Landau’s primary mandate was to lead the environmental cleanup, the team approached the project from the perspective of full integration of engineering and regulatory compliance. The project was completed under an Agreed Order between the Port and Ecology. Integration of both the shoreline and environmental cleanup under one project required Landau to have an in-depth understanding of not only the environmental cleanup portion of the project, but also of the basis of design and design plans for the shoreline restoration. The shoreline restoration design plans were driven by development needs, but Landau’s careful integration with the environmental cleanup plans facilitated a comprehensive set of construction plans that were easy for the contractor to follow.

The Solution

The project was conceived in 2018 and construction was completed in the spring of 2021, taking only three years from start to finish. The Port partnered with a private developer, Ecology, and the consultant team to deliver the required permitting and complete the shoreline restoration and remaining environmental cleanup in record time.

This project has paved the way to bring this brownfield site back into productive use, with a new job complex that will support between 130 and 300 direct (onsite), family wage jobs, 1,000 indirect (offsite) jobs and return the site to City tax rolls, generating an estimated $330,000 a year in state and local taxes.

This project is a prime example of how Landau helps our clients integrate environmental cleanups with economic development opportunities to facilitate job-producing developments and maximize environmental and community benefits.