Emergency clean-up of abandoned biofuels plant could cost $1 million

The emergency clean-up of a biofuels plant in Ferndale, Washington, could cost $1 million (EUR 939,000), according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The cleaning operation was started after regulators found hazardous substances leaking from containers at the abandoned biofuels processing plant.

TreOil Industries Biorefinery has long been a source of concern. It has been on the state Department of Ecology’s list of hazardous sites since 2001. Attempts since 2015 to get the property owner, Jagroop S. Gill, of Delta, B.C., to clean the site have been unsuccessful.

The EPA, Ecology and Whatcom County Public Health Departments have been working on the clean-up of the 34 acre site for the last few years. The EPA was tasked with the emergency clean up.

TreOil Industries Biorefinery was used to process distilled tall oil into biodiesel, alongside other industrial operations. It is believed that the site has been sitting idle and unsupervised for over a decade.

According to the EPA, 50 above ground storage tanks at the site contain around 30,000 gallons of liquid tall oil and 165,000 gallons of solidified tall oil. Many of these containers are in a poor condition.

“It’s like a ticking time bomb. At some point a container that is not maintained will fail,” Department of Ecology spokesman Larry Altose told the Belligham Herald.