Landfill Remediation

Site Description

The Washington State Department of Ecology and the City of Everett have been working together since 1994 to cleanup the Everett Landfill Site. The site has now met the cleanup standards under the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA). Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE) Tire Fire information.

View the Document Repository for the Everett Landfill Tire Fire, these documents are posted by Washington State DOE.

History

After more than 50 years of operation, the Everett Landfill stopped accepting waste in 1974 and was closed the following year. In 1977, a commercial recycling operation began storing and handling old rubber tires on portions of the site. In 1983 and 1984, 2 separate fires occurred in the tire piles. In 1989, the Landfill / Tire Fire Site was listed under the State's Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA).

Cleanup

The City conducted interim cleanup actions in 1995 and 1997to1998. These actions re-graded the site to allow the collection of surface water and to reduce the generation of leachate (groundwater within landfill materials), installed the leachate collection system, prevented leachate seeps into surface water bodies, removed remaining tires, and disposed of and capped tire fire ash onsite.

Cleanup Action Plan

The Department of Ecology and the City of Everett then entered into negotiation of a formal Cleanup Action Plan (CAP) and Consent Decree (CD) to finalize cleanup requirements. In early 1999, Ecology prepared a Draft CAP that assumed the site would remain as a closed landfill without redevelopment.

Future Redevelopment

In 1998, the City received a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate "brownfield" reuse opportunities and constraints for the site. Brownfields are properties that are abandoned or underused because of historic environmental contamination. The Department of Ecology and the City agreed that the CAP and CD should include detailed requirements for both existing and potential conditions. This would ensure that the site would not be an environmental threat whether the site was never developed or if future redevelopment was to occur.