Hazardous Waste Site Reclamation in the Bremerton Area

Rebecca Ponzio Maps
Jon Jablonski Overview
Roxanne Kerani Sites Covered
  Parcel Combination
  Parcel Buffers
  Treatment of Vague Source Data
  Buffers Used for Analysis
  Final Results
Objectives  
The Washington State Growth Management Act (RCW 36.70) of 1990 created land use tools in order to manage growth throughout the state. One of these tools is the Urban Growth Boundary, which defines the urban space according to state population projections and then mandates  that growth occur within this boundary (urban infill). Urban infill encourages cities and counties to redevelop previously undesirable lands and to rethink the urban space. The town of Bremerton is an interesting case study in identifying what undesirable lands are the most desirable to redevelop. This project examined hazardous waste sites within the urban growth boundaries for Bremerton and Port Orchard. The objective of the project was to identify the most suitable for redevelopment.     

Overview: Study Area

Preparation of Data  

The data used in this project can be categorized into four basic groups: visual reference, the hazardous waste sites themselves, and positive and negative features affecting the likelihood of remediation. The visual reference layers included Kitsap County and city boundaries, and a Kitsap hydrography file to define the bodies of water around the geographic area of interest. (see Overview Map above) These layers were used to orient us visually as we worked, and were not modified, except to exclude the areas in Kitsap County that were not included in this project. The municipalities included were Bremerton and Port Orchard.

Hazard waste site data were obtained from the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) website and the Department of Ecology (DOE) website. There were four sets of hazardous waste data: Confirmed and Suspected Contaminated Sites (from Washington DNR), National Priorities List sites (Superfund sites designated by the federal EPA), Mtca (Model Toxics Control Act) sites, and TRI (Toxics Release Inventory). Sites were listed in these files depending on various hazardous waste site classifications used by the federal and state government. For example, the six sites in the National Priorities List file have been prioritized for superfund clean-up status by the EPA. These data were re-projected to Washington State Plane North, 1983 NAD, and only those sites falling into the project area were utilized. This operation was performed first by querying the underlying tables for Kitsap County, then visually selecting those within the Bremerton area. The data from the four resulting files were then merged into one hazardous waste site file, with a field added to retain the origin of each site.

 

 

Waste Sites in Study Area

Parcel maps were obtained from Kitsap County and merged into one file.

 

The resulting file was unwieldy, therefore buffers were drawn around the hazardous waste sites in order to reduce the amount of parcel data stored. At this early stage (before we had decided many of our criteria), constructed a buffer larger than any we thought might be needed, and discarded the remaining data.

Parcel Map Buffers

It was found that some sites were duplicated between files, although the geographic locations of these points were not always consistent.. After extensive discussion, it was decided to assume that the sites were in fact businesses with multiple sites, and contain more than one hazardous waste site. Therefore all sites were considered separately for reclamation, including those with the same site name. (see Al's Auto Body map below.)  

Al's Auto Body and Hazardous Waste Sites

Construction of Buffers  

The project primarily considered features considered attractive for residential development. These included proximity to city and county parks, libraries, community centers, schools, and arterial roads (more attractive for the construction process than the future residents), and being within the urban growth boundary. Park, school, and arterial files did not require restructuring, with the exception of isolating parks, libraries, community centers from a file of county public facilities, and limiting the countywide information to include only parks, schools, and arterials in the Bremerton area. The current uses of the waste site parcels were also taken into consideration-with the idea that currently un- or under- used parcels were identifiable.

Several characteristics of the areas surrounding hazardous waste sites were considered for their potential negative impact on maintaining these sites in their current locations. These included the proximity to shoreline and wetlands, and the possibility of future landslides. The shoreline, wetlands, and geohazards data did not require restructuring, except for clipping the data to include only those features that fell inside the study area. Neither wetlands nor any geohazard (landslide areas) fell near enough the sites to be taken into account. Therefore, wetland and geohazard attributes did not end up being an adverse data component.

 

 

 

 
Processes  

Several assumptions were made to complete this project. Perhaps most importantly, it was assumed that we could reclaim and develop any of these waste sites, except those essential for national defense. Sites that were excluded included the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, located in central Bremerton, and the Manchester Naval Fuel Depot, located in a narrow harbor to the northwest of Port Orchard. All other sites that may or may not be in current use were considered eligible for reclamation. The main reason for this assumption was the inability to do field work in order to determine each parcel's occupancy status. In order to identify vacant lots or parcels, we selected parcels which had assessed land value but no assessed building value from the parcel maps. We then assumed that these lots were vacant if they were not assigned a tax code of "exempt." Vacant parcels were considered attractive for development because of their potential to blight a neighborhood, and the reduced cost of redeveloping these parcels.

Weighting Scheme

Theme Buffer Distance
(feet)
Weighting

Shoreline

200

5

Schools 0-500 3
500-1000 2
1000-1500 1

Libaries, Community Center

6000

1

City, County & state parks

6000

1

Geohazards

50

2

Arterials

<1000

1

> 2000

-1

Vacant Parcels

No buffer

1

Inclusion on National Priorities List

No buffer

1

The overall process used to rank hazardous waste sites for reclamation was an overlay with weighted voting. The initial step of only including hazardous waste sites in the geographic area around Bremerton could also be considered an overlay, using exclusionary screening. Various features were assigned weights based on the project team's beliefs regarding which characteristics were least and most desirable for the reclamation and development process. Parks, libraries, community centers and closeness to arterials were considered positive factors which should encourage redevelopment. Being within the school or shoreline buffers, negative factors, also encouraged redevelopment. A bonus point was given to vacant parcels, their vacancies' determined as described above. In addition, a bonus point was given to those sites listed on the National Priorities List (NPL) since these hazardous waste sites have already been prioritized for cleanup. The weights assigned to each site were then summed to calculate the final score for the overlay process.

 

Buffers Used for Ranking of Sites

Results  
The hazardous wastes site identified as the "Old Bremerton Gasworks" had the highest ranking (a 10) when the overlay process was complete. This site is in close proximity to a school, is identified as a vacant parcel, is on the National Priorities List and is within the shoreline buffer.. Two other sites had similar scores: the "Bremerton Air Disposal" site and "Loftus Bulk Plant" each ranking a 9. These sites had profiles similar to the "Old Bremerton Gasworks," except in their lack of proximity to a school. Many of the sites with low scores seemed to be located in commercial or industrial areas and, away from the shoreline. These sites included landfills and auto-related businesses.  

Final Ranking

Limitations  
One of the limitations of these results is that the site locations were somewhat questionable, given that two data files, containing similar site names, placed the sites in inconsistent locations. This certainly influenced the results of the project; some of these sites which shared names had varying scores dependent on their location. This is an issue that would need to be resolved for future work in this area (possibly through ground truthing). Additional data on the current status of parcels, vacancy status and zoning would have contributed to more precise, and probably more useful, results. Currently, the project identifies sites for residential development, but these sites may actually be located in areas that are zoned for commercial or industrial use. This project was limited in scope. We decided to only create a ranking system to identify sites most desirable for redevelopment. Additional analyses could classify the sites by type of redevelopment: residential, commercial, industrial, or open space. The limitations of our overlay were due primarily on limited information and time factors. Your mileage may vary.

 

 

 

NAME Regulations Site Status Parcel Use Public Facilities Shoreline Parks Schools Arterial Road
SCORE
US Navy - Jackson Park Housing npl 1 1   5       6
NORSELAND SITE css             1 1
ALS AUTO REPAIR css             1 1
BREM AIR Disposa css   1 1 5     1 8
CHEVRON TANK FAR css       5       5
LAMBERTS RADIATO css   1           0
LOFTHUS BULK PLA css   1 1 5     1 8
Old Bremerton Ga css   1 1     1 -1 2
EDERSON OIL SIT css   1         -1 0
WOLF PROPERTY css         1   1 2
BREMERTON NATIONAL AIRPORT mtca             1 1
NORSELAND SITE mtca             1 1
OLYMPIC VIEW SANITARY LANDFILL mtca   1           1
BETHEL/FORMER TEXACO mtca             1 1
ALS AUTO REPAIR mtca           1 2
WOLF PROPERTY mtca       1   1 2
ACE PAVING MAINTENANCE SHOP mtca   1         1 3
LAMBERTS RADIATOR SHOP mtca   1 1       -1 1
EVERGREEN PARK BREMERTON mtca   1 1     1 1 4
OLD BREMERTON GASWORKS mtca   1 1 5   1 1 9
LOFTHUS BULK PLANT mtca   1         1
CHEVRON TANK FARM PORT mtca   1 1 5       7
PEDERSON OIL SITE FORMER mtca   1   5     -1 5
VICTORY STATION LANDFILL mtca             1 1
HOWERTON SILVERDALE LANDFILL mtca   1     1   1 3
BREMERTON NATL AIRPT ROGERS mtca             1 1
NAVY CITY METALS INC mtca             1 1
BREM AIR DISPOSAL INC mtca     1        1 2
COUNTRY JUNCTION STORE mtca   1     1   1 3
U.S. NAVY  PUGET SOUND, NAVAL tri             1 1

 

Data Preparation

   
   
   

Parcel Manipulation

   
   
   

Buffer Constructon

   
   
   
   

Overlay and Scoring