environmental Strategist, between the lines: Heavy metal contamination like the example in the article below is an obvious environmental exposure for a sporting club. Some of the not so obvious environmental exposures for sporting clubs identified by environmental Strategist™ at www.estrategist.com are: Vapor intrusion; Storm water runoff; Illegal disposal of waste; Improper treatment and/or disposal and/or operation of sanitary wastewater facilities; Fuel spills from recreational equipment; Unknown abandoned underground storage tanks; Siltation of nearby streams, rivers, or lakes; Improper erosion control management; Electrical equipment containing toxic PCBS; Old, abandoned wells which are not properly closed and serve as an open conduit for groundwater contamination; Old septic systems; Pressurized gas cylinders; Loading and unloading products from tucks / planes / trains / boats; Pollution from neighboring properties which causes soil, surface water or ground-water contamination; Easements that cross the property which may leak or spill hazardous materials; Residual contamination such as fertilizers or pesticides from past farming or similar uses; Spills and air emission from power generators….
Lawsuit seeks cleanup of creek by Gig Harbor Sportsman’s Club
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| Aug. 22–A lawsuit filed Friday in Pierce County Superior Court by Burnham Construction seeks to require the Gig Harbor Sportsman’s Club to clean up decades of contamination in a nearby local stream.
North Creek, a small stream that feeds into Donkey Creek and eventually to Gig Harbor Bay and Puget Sound, has seen an accumulation of heavy metals from spent shots fired from the Sportsman’s Club, the lawsuit claims. Investigations by the state Department of Ecology and the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department found that samples immediately downstream of the Sportsman’s Club had lead concentrations 900 times higher than the state’s water quality criteria. Ecology concluded that North Creek had the highest levels of lead pollution of any water body in the state. Burnham Construction is a subsidiary of Donkey Creek Holdings and the owner of property immediately adjacent to and downstream of the Sportsman’s Club property. Representatives of Donkey Creek Holdings say they attempted to work with the club for more than a year, hoping the club would clean up and restore the creek. “We didn’t want bring this suit,” Wade Perrow, one of the owners of Donkey Creek Holdings, stated in a news release. “We appreciate the club’s rich history and the decades of service it has provided to the community. “We aren’t trying to force the club to close or move. We just want it to accept its legal responsibility to clean up the contamination its activities have caused and to stop polluting the creek.” Reporter Brett Davis can be reached at 253-853-9243 or by email at brett.davis@gateline.com. Follow him on Twitter @gateway_brett. |