SEATTLE – In black waves, drifts and bands, crumbs of rubber are polluting miles of the Puyallup River after a spill at a dam project last month.
Rubber debris already is likely more than 40 miles downriver in Puget Sound. The pollution is the result of unpermitted use of thousands of yards of artificial turf by the dam's owners while reconstructing parts of the dam.
The Puyallup Tribe was first alerted to the spill by a social media post put up July 31 by Derek Van Giesen, a former employee of Electron Hydro, an owner of the Electron Hydropower Project. He walked off the job over the installation of the turf liner and a large fish kill at the dam that took place the same day as the spill, which occurred overnight on July 29.
Van Giesen said the turf came from a pile stored on the property of a neighboring rock quarry. The pile is at least one story high and as long as a football field.
The company did not inform regulators of the pollution discharge until Aug. 4, according to a consultant's report on the spill prepared for Electron Hydro. A stop-work order was imposed on the company's construction project Aug. 7 by Pierce County and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
From the stop order: "The use of astro-turf in a river system where it can break down and discharge potential toxins into the water is not considered a suitable material."
The question now is how to clean up the mess, just weeks before adult chinook salmon listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act are expected to arrive on their homeward journey.
According to the consultant's report, the company, as part of its work on a bypass channel at the dam, placed 2,409 square yards of FieldTurf on the channel between July 20 and 27. The turf was intended to function as an underlayment for a plastic liner put on top of it. The company then diverted the river into the bypass channel to create a dry area to continue ongoing work at its dam.
The night of July 29, the diverted river — well known for its rock-chucking high flows — ripped pieces of the liner and turf loose, sending hunks of artificial turf and a torrent of loose black crumb rubber downriver.
The consultant, Shane Cherry of Shane Cherry Consulting of Fort Myers, Fla., estimated that at least 617 square yards of the artificial turf was ruptured by the river; about 1,792 square yards remain in place under the liner.
At least 4 to 6 cubic yards of crumb rubber — each piece about the size of a fat coffee ground — was released into the river, in the pristine upper reaches of the Puyallup, about 6 miles from the boundary with Mount Rainier National Park.
On a visit to the river Thursday with the Seattle Times, Sylvia Miller, vice chairwoman of the Puyallup Tribal council, said she was sick at heart because of the spill.
"I feel anger, so much anger," Miller said. "It hurts to see how much damage they are doing to our lands and waters, everyone's lands and waters."
