Additional sump containing product identified in basement of WW hotel

News release from city of Walla Walla

WALLA WALLA – Washington Department of Ecology has continued to oversee the pumping operation from the sump in the building at 106 N. 2nd Ave., until extraction from the monitoring wells or other means of source control are implemented. Three of the monitoring wells drilled around the Chevron station are being explored as possible candidates for this extraction. An additional sump, containing product, was identified in the basement of the Marcus Whitman Hotel. Clean Harbors began the process of recovering product from that sump.

Approximately 20,000 gallons of gasoline/groundwater mixture has been recovered to date, an estimated 1,500 to 3,000 gallons of which is recovered gasoline. This is only an estimate and will be revised in the future. Clean Harbors is working to mobilize a frac tank-based treatment system that will filter out the contaminants from this mixture, prior to discharging clean water to Walla Walla’s Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Staff at the Wastewater Treatment Plant have been monitoring the wastewater system throughout the incident and have observed no evidence of gasoline entering the system. Similarly, monitoring of Mill Creek continues to detect no evidence of contaminants entering the waterway.

This update is based on information provided by Washington Department of Ecology staff. City staff will continue to provide these updates on the City website (https://www.wallawallawa.gov/gasoline) as we receive additional info from Ecology.

File photo

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Elkhorn Media Group

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