Heavy metal exposure exceeds state water quality standards.

The state is working to contain contaminants that have long leeched into Eagle Harbor from under the Washington State Ferries maintenance yard.

Work crews employed by WSF and under the direction of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spread approximately three feet of gravel and sand over a plastic membrane last week along the beach where the harbor meets Winslow Ravine. The new sediment cap is aimed at containing copper, zinc and possibly other contaminants from seeping into the harbor at levels that exceed state water quality guidelines.

Both the WSF and EPA were unable to provide specific detail on the amount of contaminants released over the years and how much it surpasses water quality limits.

“The seepage rate is in the neighborhood of a few gallons per minute and that seepage contains elevated levels of copper and zinc,” said David Sowers, a WSF construction manager. “How elevated those levels are over the baseline, I don’t know.”

A WSF environmental engineer said on Monday he had more detailed information but later declined to comment.

The seepage had been identified in the mid-1990s, but treatment was delayed as WSF opted to observe and document the contaminants, according to EPA project manager Mary Jane Nearman.

“The notion was that the (contaminants) were relatively minor and that (WSF) was going to be monitoring it to see if it naturally degrades,” Nearman said Monday.

Much of the maintenance yard underwent an environmental clean-up and sediment capping under the EPA’s Superfund program to tackle chemical pollutants leftover from a former shipbuilding operation at the yard’s present site. The current seepage is outside the Superfund site’s initial treatment area.

WSF observations showed that contaminant levels continued to exceed state pollution levels and was not degrading at the predicted rate.

In 2000, WSF proposed capping the area but delayed the project after the maintenance yard’s future became unclear. WSF had considered moving the yard off Bainbridge Island but recently asserted its right to stay.

“The ferry system determined that they would leave the maintenance facility there and (decided they) needed to address the seepage,” Nearman said.

Island activists from Reclaim Our Waterfront renewed their calls for the yard’s removal this week as the new cap was installed.

“WSF has not been good stewards of this land,” said ROW member Debbi Lester. “How much has seeped into the water in the past three to four years? This is the water that our rowers row in, our children sail in. This is outrageous.”

The aquatic environment is particularly susceptible to the harmful effects of zinc, copper and other heavy metal pollution because aquatic organisms are in close and prolonged contact with the soluble metals.

Ecosystem contamination from copper and other metals may damage marine organisms at the cellular level and possibly affect the ecological balance, according to the state Puget Sound Action Team. Shellfish have demonstrated higher rates of metal accumulation than other species due to their filter-based feeding systems.

Implement an eelgrass replanting project – which was recommended in a 2002 EPA report – would help boost the area’s environmental health, Lester said.

ROW members sounded alarms about last week’s cap installation after it was discovered the city had issued no permit.

The EPA, however, is not required to obtain local permits for federal Superfund remediation projects, according to city staff.

The EPA had notified the city, local tribes, state and federal agencies of the last week’s planned work in November 2000, according to Nearman.

“There’s been a lot of confusion about what we’re doing,” said Nearman. “But what the EPA has been involved in, and what WSF is conducting, has been known for years.”