In an effort to augment the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s limited “near-term” approach to cleaning up and containing the 100 million gallons of creosote fouling the soil at the nine-acre “point” of the Wyckoff Superfund Site, the state’s Department of Ecology has launched a “generational remedy” alternative designed to more permanently reduce and contain the toxic mass, so that it won’t continue to be an environmental nightmare for several generations going forward.

EPA’s current containment “remedy” includes a perimeter wall, site cap and groundwater extraction system (featuring a new water treatment plant) to contain soil and groundwater contamination of mobile tar compounds. But the project has some serious drawbacks, including: cost (about $1 million a year that will eventually become the state’s responsibility); a completion time frame of a few hundred years; and a minimal level of containment of material that’s very mobile and obviously susceptible to forces such as earthquakes and high-water levels.

So representatives of DOE, a steering committee of six local residents and eight (selected from 42) national and local experts in the environmental cleanup field, spent three days this past week brainstorming at IslandWood. The group spent two hours introducing the project and a few potential cleanup methods to community members Wednesday evening. Food for thought came in the form of three possible cleanup approaches that would take somewhere between six and 20 years to complete. And at an estimated cost of somewhere between $50 million and $110 million, according to DOE’s Tim Nord.

Later this year, the group’s report will be presented to the community for input, Nord said. He didn’t say that it would then be placed on a shelf to collect dust until millions of dollars of funding magically appears, but that was understood without anyone actually saying it.

Some islanders believe the cleanup can be done biologically for a fraction of the cost, but it’s clear that the so-called experts believe that approach won’t work.

One possible cleanup method, or a combination thereof, involves thermal treatment of the soil (via steam injections and electrical heating) along with increased containment and stabilization of the site.

Finding the right solution seems elusive now, but there’s nothing ambiguous about the goal of eventually reopening one of Puget Sound’s most beautiful areas to public use. Right now, it’s a nasty site and an expensive, complicated issue, but it’s one we must pursue.