The city’s newest park will add trails, beach access and public space
Bellingham is in the first phase of Salish Landing Park following a decade of planning: an overhaul of the space previously known as Cornwall Beach Park on Pine Street.
City officials say this portion of a much larger site project will reconnect residents with a section of shoreline that was long inaccessible, while providing public access that has undergone extensive environmental cleanup. This follows contamination from the former R.G. Haley wood treatment facility, along with the Cornwall Avenue Landfill.
This substantial Phase I of the project was first envisioned during community planning efforts in 2014. It will take three years to complete. Phase II is part of the much larger Waterfront District redevelopment. According to Parks and Recreation Director Nicole Oliver, the park was intentionally planned alongside ongoing environmental work to avoid delaying public access to the waterfront.
“Phase I is in conjunction with the cleanup,” said Oliver. This is so park workers don’t have to “interact with hazardous materials.”
Construction officially began in January. Current work includes shoreline armoring – reinforcing against erosion from the waterline – excavation at the R.G. Haley site and preparation for in-water work at the Cornwall Avenue site.
In-water work specific to Phase I of the Salish Landing Project will include placing a sediment cap made of clean layers of gravel, cobble and sand over contaminated sediment. The materials will also provide habitat for intertidal organisms. Specially sized sand and gravel will be used to support eelgrass growth, according to the city.
Once complete, the park will become one of the largest public open spaces in the Waterfront District and provide a continuous recreational corridor stretching farther along Bellingham Bay. City plans also include eventually extending the waterfront connection between Fairhaven and downtown through a continuation of Taylor Dock.
According to the City of Bellingham, industrial activities at the sites caused pollution in the soil, groundwater and sediment. The R.G. Haley site operated as a wood treatment facility until 1985, while the Cornwall Avenue site served as the city landfill from 1954 to 1965.
The contamination is part of a broader history of industrial impacts on Bellingham Bay. A 1990 Washington State Department of Ecology inspection of the Georgia Pacific pulp and chlor-alkali facilities in Bellingham documented industrial wastewater and investigated environmental conditions associated with the facility. The Georgia Pacific site is separate from the R.G. Haley and Cornwall Avenue sites, but provides another example of historic industrial activity affecting the Bellingham waterfront.
According to a review published in Bioresource Technology, pulp and paper making is a very water-intensive industry and ranks third in the world for freshwater withdrawal, after the primary metals and the chemical industries.
The contamination at the Salish Landing site will remain beneath the park under a system designed to prevent pollutants from spreading into surrounding soil or Bellingham Bay.
“All on-site soils will be capped in place beneath a seven-layer capping system that will be tightly sealed to prevent pollutants spreading into surrounding soils or water,” said Craig Mueller, a project engineer with the public works department.
The system includes a gas collection layer, a 40-millimeter-thick linear low-density polyethylene geomembrane, a drainage layer and at least 2 feet of cover soil. The geomembrane is heat-welded to create an impermeable barrier that prevents stormwater from infiltrating the underlying waste.
The most heavily contaminated soil is being treated through in-situ solidification, a process in which contaminated soil is mixed with concrete to lock pollutants in place and create an impermeable barrier. Underwater portions of the site will also be capped with about 1 foot of material containing activated carbon or organophilic clay to help trap remaining pollutants.
The City of Bellingham, Port of Bellingham and Washington Department of Ecology considered multiple cleanup options before selecting the capping strategy. Options were evaluated based on cost, human and environmental health protections and feasibility.
Removing the contaminated material would have required excavating and transporting the waste for incineration. Because of the specific contaminants present at the site, the closest facility capable of handling the material is in Utah, Mueller said. Excavation and off-site disposal would have cost nearly $1 billion, which was outside the project partners’ budget.
The cleanup strategy is designed to allow public access while keeping the contamination contained. The cap is expected to last more than 100 years and will be buried beneath at least 2 feet of soil.
“We will monitor and maintain the site indefinitely to ensure everything is working correctly,” Mueller said.
The city, port and Ecology will develop an operations and maintenance plan outlining long-term monitoring requirements. The plan will likely include regular physical inspections, groundwater well monitoring, gas collection system monitoring and monitoring of plantings and eelgrass.
These ideas remain dependent on additional planning and permitting. Oliver said previous concepts for overwater walkways required consideration of tribal fishing rights and nearby eelgrass habitat.
The first phase of Salish Landing will include a small parking area, trails, plantings and utilities needed to construct the park alongside the environmental cleanup, according to the city. The city designed the first phase to avoid future interaction with capped contaminated materials.
Future phases may add amenities including a large sandy beach, boat storage, concessions, sand volleyball courts and expanded gathering spaces, though Oliver said the city intends to revisit the original master plan with community input before moving forward.
“We’d like to reengage with the community after we get to enjoy this new public space,” Oliver said.
The design reflects priorities residents identified during public outreach more than a decade ago, including increased waterfront access and opportunities for recreation. Oliver said the city also wanted the park to maintain a natural character despite its urban location.
“I think it’s going to be a pretty open, probably a little bit breezy, natural experience,” Oliver said.
Unlike more developed waterfront parks, Salish Landing is intended to emphasize open shoreline, beach access and unobstructed views of Bellingham Bay. Plans also incorporate the former Glass Beach area into the park and include a large beach near the southern end of the property.
The shoreline will include rock structures designed to limit erosion and protect the park from waves. The size and placement of the rock will be modeled to account for wave erosion and shoreline conditions.
The area known as Glass Beach received its name from glass and other material exposed as the former landfill eroded along the shoreline.
Accessibility was another priority throughout the design process. Existing construction roadways are being converted into permanent trails, allowing the city to create an accessible path network across the relatively flat site. The park will also include the city’s first technically accessible hand-launch boat site.
The site’s environmental cleanup has also affected the park’s landscaping. Tree roots can interfere with the drainage layer and underlying geomembrane, so areas where deeper-rooted plantings are desired will use mounded planting areas, particularly along the upper shoreline. The project also required extensive work in the intertidal zone and in-water sediment capping. Water levels can change by as much as 8 feet vertically twice a day because of the tides, Mueller said.
Oliver said the city designed the park with future environmental conditions in mind, including projected sea level rise.
“We have to make sure that we are building it so it stays safe and that it will be adapted to climate change,” she said.
The project’s construction contract was awarded to IMCO General Construction for $48,779,160.34, according to the city. The contract covers the R.G. Haley and Cornwall Avenue Landfill cleanup and the first phase of Salish Landing Park.
—By Allie Van Parys