Almost eight months after it started, the last vestige of the Gray Road Fire near Medical Lake continues to smolder — with no end yet in sight.
Since roughly mid-September, officials with four different agencies have battled a slow-burning fire in an unpermitted, almost 70-year-old underground landfill on state property just northeast of Waterfront Park. The Department of Ecology notified the Department of Social and Health Services in a Feb. 12 letter that an Environmental Report Tracking System report from Feb. 8 indicated the potential for hazardous materials at the site.
“During the investigation, Ecology determined that contamination exists at your site,” Ecology Section Manager Nicolas Acklam wrote in the letter to DSHS Capital Program Project Manager Kristine Keller.
“As a result, we added this property to our database as a state cleanup site that will need to be cleaned up pursuant to MTCA (Model Toxics Control Act) requirements,” Acklam added.
Exact contents of the landfill are unknown, Spokane County Fire District 3 Deputy Chief Bill Dennstaedt said in an April 3 interview. According to DSHS, the landfill largely contains building materials such as concrete, brick, metal, plaster, asbestos insulation and painted surfaces, although a report available on the Ecology webpage created for the incident indicated the “suspected” presence of metals, lead, mercury and arsenic along with potentially barium and other organic compounds.
The webpage also stated that, because some debris came from medical facilities, there could be the presence of radioactive materials as well. Site scans by U.S. Air Force personnel revealed no radioactive materials, however.
Additionally, a report prepared for DSHS by Mountain Consulting Services of Spokane, the center portion of the debris pile is coal waste.
Dennstaedt said Fire District 3 was contacted by Bureau of Land Management wildland fire crews putting out hot spots in the Gray Road burn perimeter about the landfill fire on Sept. 18. While skilled in handling wildfires, these crews lack the necessary training and equipment, such as breathing apparatus, to deal with more complex fire scenarios such as this, Dennstaedt added.
Fire District personnel spent a couple weeks pouring thousands of gallons of water on the site without success. After consulting with Ecology, the decision was made to monitor the fire over the winter to see if it would burn itself out.
“January came and it was still active, smoking,” Dennstaedt said, adding fire crews returned to the site to pour more water on it, without success in extinguishing it.
“We’ve put over 10,000 gallons of water on it since the Gray Fire,” he said. “We’ve not seen any open flame in this, just open steam pockets.”
The site is west of Pine Street northeast of Waterfront Park and southwest of the former Pine Lodge Correctional Center, almost directly east of the West Medical Lake boat launch. Specifically located behind Lakes Memorial Cemetery and south of Poplar Street, accessible by a dirt track south of the cemetery, the overall dump site is — according to the Mountain Consulting report — approximately 400 feet long by 50 feet wide and about 30 feet deep.
Of additional concern is the fact the site is located approximately 300 feet east of the West Medical Lake shoreline.
“We want to control the use of water suppression because we don’t want to cause any groundwater issues,” Dennstaedt said.
Eastern Washington University Geosciences Department professor Dr. Chad Pritchard said they have taken water samples from the area. As of press time, April 8, they were still awaiting results of those samples.
Dennstaedt said the area burning is roughly a circle 25 – 30 feet in diameter. State security and DSHS personnel check the site daily.
“DSHS has hired an industrial hygienist to test materials and air sampling of the site,” Norah West, DSHS Assistant Director in the Office of Communications and Government Affairs, said in an April 4 email.
Ecology has also installed a portable air sampler to monitor air quality. Besides Fire District 3, DSHS and Ecology, officials with Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency are also working on the incident.
“At this time, pollutants from the smoke are recorded as below an actionable limit,” West added.
Spokane Clean Air Communications/Outreach Manager Lisa Woodard said agency inspectors have visited the site three times since January. On each occasion, minimal smoke and no flames were observed, although during the March 20 visit, fire officials said when they applied water on March 19 it increased the amount of smoke.
According to several residents, there was also a smell of burning petroleum permeating through the city that day as well.
“We’ll continue to conduct routine visits to check for odors,” Woodard said. “In between our routine visits, we will respond to any odor or smoke complaints filed with our agency.”
Dennstaedt said they are still working on developing a plan to extinguish the landfill fire so clean up can begin. Part of the plan includes better access to the site for fire crews along with security fencing.
According to Ecology, some steps include removing trees, brush and other ignitable material in the vicinity and developing a plan to dig out the material and hose it down in metal boxes. Fire information can be found at, https://apps.ecology.wa.gov/cleanupsearch/site/16994.
