Although no official vote was taken, the Centralia City Council seemingly aligned with the opinion that the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) should close the Bob Oke Game Farm, which they believe bears the most responsibility for nitrate contamination in nearby water supplies.
The seven-member council spoke out Tuesday night against the WDFW-operated game farm and the agency’s response following a Monday afternoon meeting the WDFW, the Lewis County Board of Commissioners, Centralia City Manager Michael Thomas and Centralia Public Works Director Andy Oien all attended.
Thomas and Oien provided an update to the council on WDFW’s presentation regarding its mitigation efforts to lessen the impact of nitrates that are widely assumed to be coming from their operation of the game farm, which breeds and raises between 40,000 and 45,000 pheasants each year.
Thomas reported that the WDFW has planted more than 100 poplar trees on the northern edge of the farm to “basically block the flow (of nitrates) as it goes out of the property area.” He said the WDFW will also “voluntarily” meet the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, or CAFO, requirements defined by the Washington state Department of Ecology (DOE) by March 2026. A CAFO, according to the DOE, is a commercial operation that produces animal and animal-based products that confine and feed legally specified numbers of livestock or poultry in a lot or facility.
Thomas also noted that the WDFW has reduced the number of birds on the property by 40% and is moving birds around more frequently, including away from pens closest to the road where the most productive area for the aquifer lies. The state agency has also reportedly cleaned its feeding and waste systems “to be less dirty and more efficient so there’s less waste,” Thomas said, and has deactivated one of its test well sites that may have been “leeching” into the aquifer.
But Mayor Kelly Smith Johnston and the councilors, similarly to the March 24 meeting at Centralia High School with state officials and elected officials, grew frustrated with the WDFW’s response, especially as the agency referred to the farm’s impact as one of multiple “contributing factors” to the nitrate contamination.
“I think the WDFW’s response has been woefully inadequate and they continue to delay and obfuscate the issue. In the meantime, we have a safe drinking water issue. It confounds me,” Smith Johnston said. “We haven’t taken a vote, but my sense is that we’re aligned in that we would like to see the game farm closed. It’s a no-brainer.”
Smith Johnston’s comments drew scattered applause from those in the crowd. She then took her remarks one step further and crafted a request.
“I would like to see what council and what (staff) thinks about us formally adopting a resolution that we want that closed, writing a letter to the governor stating that, sending a letter to (the Department of) Ecology and WDFW to at least make our stance explicitly clear that they’re doing all of this stuff, we’re trying to collaborate with them but that we think it is inadequate, that it is too slow, and that it is not responsive to a dire public health issue.”
Councilors also took offense to what they called a lack of urgency by the WDFW. When asked by Councilor Mark Westley about his “gut reaction” to the WDFW presentation, Oien said “time will tell” whether the mitigation efforts will prove to be meaningful and that both he and the WDFW don’t know if the measures will work. Smith Johnston remarked that the WDFW’s presentation carried a similar tone to the March meeting when Mott McDonald hydrogeologist Glenn Mutti-Driscoll said that the estimated travel time for the groundwater nitrate improvements north of the high school would be seven to 19 years based on groundwater flow and precipitation.
The mayor said with any action the city takes now, children who haven’t even been born yet could potentially graduate high school before the issue may be fully resolved, judging by that seven-to-19-year estimate. Oien added that if WDFW stopped raising pheasants today, the nitrate contamination currently in the soil would “continue to stay in the aquifer” and that the plume would take seven to 19 years to travel through.
“I very much appreciate the sportsmanship of hunting and how meaningful that can be, but you can’t prioritize that over people having safe drinking water in their homes,” Smith Johnston said.
Councilor Norm Chapman proved his displeasure with the situation, holding up his cup of water that reads: “Warning: Radioactive Waste” and placing a sticky note replacing the last two words so it reads “Warning: WDFW Nitrate H2O.”
“I’m gonna change it to this and walk around Centralia to keep this issue front and center until we get it resolved because the residents anywhere in Centralia just don’t deserve it,” Chapman said. “They can pull whatever smoke they want, and we’re going to pin them on it every time.”
Councilor Max Vogt called the game farm a “bird mill” and questioned the purpose of the operation itself and the WDFW’s solutions.
“Our wildlife department has been running a bird mill since the 1950s with 40,000 birds, which they now admit they need to reduce the size of. They’ve admitted this bird mill is putting human life in jeopardy,” Vogt said. “This doesn’t make any sense, and how they can justify it, it hasn’t made sense to me. I agree with shutting it down.”
Westley said he doesn’t just want to see the game farm closed; he wants to find out how deep the contamination in the soil goes. He also maintained that he wants to put pressure on WDFW to force them to produce results for citizens to have healthy water.
“I don’t want to just see it closed down and give them the “get out of jail free” card and let them walk away and the contaminants remain there,” he said. “I would like to take it to the point where we find out how deep that contamination goes. Instead of waiting up to 20 years possibly for that to be flushed out, why can’t they be doing some kind of process or be held accountable for that?”
Oien confirmed that the birds were moved away from the road but closer to the Chehalis River, and he admitted that he doesn’t know the details of the groundwater flow from that location. He said the WDFW added four additional monitoring wells on the game farm property and that one of those wells would potentially be in the area where the birds were relocated.
“Their additional study that they’re going through will reveal that information, I believe, but I don’t think there’s a concern with surface runoff. Well, there could be a concern with surface runoff with the number of birds, or any animal for that matter, close to the river,” Oien said. “But I do believe there’s still going to be a pretty good buffer.”
Thomas said the next “major” on-site soil test will be conducted in September, and the county, the city, WDFW and a hydrogeologist will study the trends of the samples to see whether the nitrates are increasing, stabilizing or decreasing. Oien said he is confident the data will be accurate after Chapman asked about whether WDFW would be “controlling” the testing.
Thomas stated that he and Oien stayed after the county meeting for “about an hour” to answer questions from residents residing on Mayberry Road and the surrounding areas.
“I will freely admit that we didn’t please them all ... There were some folks that I think just don’t like the situation they’re in,” Thomas said.
“And that’s perfectly acceptable and that’s understandable. I can commiserate with where they’re standing and their opinions, but we did spend quite a bit of time giving them honest, straightforward answers to their questions.”
During the March 24 meeting, state representatives inquired about a potential relocation or land swap of the game farm property. Thomas said the WDFW presented a list of 10 data points for criteria as to what would qualify for an appropriate place to move the game farm. The department provided 59 properties it owns in 19 other counties to be considered, with deciding criteria including transportation costs, environmental impact studies, distance from release habitat, and others.
For more information on the March 24 meeting, visit https://tinyurl.com/bdda8hn9.
Read more coverage about WDFW's meeting with county officials here: https://www.chronline.com/stories/at-meeting-wdfw-officials-stop-short-of-accepting-full-blame-for-nitrate-contamination,386102
