The Winlock City Council convened on Monday, July 14, to discuss a number of issues, including a delay on repairing the Nevil Road sink hole caused by the Washington state Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and a recent spill of diesel fuel into Olequa Creek.
Additionally, Winlock Mayor Brandon Svenson read a thank you letter recently sent and signed by Toledo City Council into the record.
Toledo’s council thanked Winlock for recent help provided with law enforcement services, assisting with water testing and more.
“We do appreciate that relationship. If we step back in the time machine to not too long ago, it wasn’t like that,” Svenson said. “It wasn’t like that with Napavine either, so we’re grateful for all the partnerships we have.”
Winlock City Councilor Jeramy Allman also congratulated the City of Toledo on its recent successful annual Cheese Days Festival.
The full City of Toledo thank you letter can be found at https://www.chronline.com/opinion/.
Nevil Road and Olequa Creek
In June, the Winlock City Council approved its annual update to the city’s six-year transportation improvement plan, in which one of the priority projects for this year was fixing the sink hole on Nevil Road.
“The Nevil Road sink hole, we were going to work on it this week. WSDOT never showed up to the meeting,” Svenson said.
He added city staff were still attempting to get WSDOT staff involved with the project.
“It’s one of those things where if you go ahead and do it without them, then they’re going to show up and get angry. You try to loop them in, and then they don’t show up. We’re going to continue to try to work on that relationship and get them in the mix, so that hopefully we can get this done soon,” he said. “It needs to get done while school’s out, so we’re not blocking school buses.”
The goal is to have repairs completed by August at the latest.
As for the Olequa Creek diesel fuel spill, the contamination was announced by Lewis County officials last week. A Washington state Department of Ecology investigation discovered approximately 200 gallons of diesel fuel were unaccounted for in an above-ground storage tank located near the Olequa Creek bank on Northwest King Road.
During public comment, Mike Lowry asked for clarification as to who owned the land where the spill occurred and who was going to be responsible for paying for the cleanup.
“The city owns the property, but the (Winlock) School District has had it for a number of years,” Svenson explained. “Also, there is an entity that came in that delivers the fuel, that also was to clean the tank. My understanding is that maybe tank cleaning didn’t go so well.”
He added the tank also has a concrete shell basin which appears to be cracked, but the investigation is still ongoing.
“They have cleanup crews out there. I’m going to find out more about it tomorrow about what that looks like. I don’t personally think we should be on the hook for that one,” Svenson said.
According to Svenson, the City of Winlock has several diesel fuel storage tanks, but instead of concrete shells, they have metal ones.
“At a certain point they could rust, but that would take years. In this situation, I think it was a bit of an oversight to not address the concrete basin probably sooner,” he said.
While 200 gallons of diesel are unaccounted for, it is unknown how much of those 200 gallons actually leaked into Olequa Creek before an oil sheen was reported to Ecology.
Ecology officials estimated that up to a mile of the creek may have been affected, and asked residents to avoid swimming, wading or otherwise entering the creek at any point between Winlock and Vader.
The health warning included with the news release advises residents to avoid contact with the creek water, keep pets and other animals away from the creek and report any oil sheen by calling 1-800-OILS-911.
