Hundreds of creosote-soaked pilings along Ruston Way to be removed
Remnants of a long-ago lumber mill along the Ruston Way waterfront can still be seen more than 40 years after it closed down.
Perhaps the most notable are the 1,000 pilings that supported a dock there.
Their history in Tacoma is drawing to a close.
The state Department of Natural Resources is planning to remove the pilings as part of its Creosote Pilings Removal Program. The Dickman Mill site will be one of the larger projects DNR has tackled in years, said Monica Shoemaker, aquatics restoration manager with DNR.
Creosote is a wood preservative that is carcinogenic and harmful to the environment, causing high mortality and developmental abnormalities in herring eggs that attach to the pilings. Even fumes wafting from the timbers can be toxic.
“It’s really bad stuff,” Shoemaker said.
Dickman Mill opened in the 1890s and stopped operations in the 1970s. Shoemaker estimates that the creosote pilings still standing are between 70 and 80 years old, having been rebuilt after a ship collided with the dock in 1938.
“They’re old, and if you go out there and are able to get a good look at them, they’re breaking apart and floating off and ending up on the beaches,” Shoemaker said. “They’re only getting older and more degraded.”
It will take some time to remove them. DNR is currently working with a consultant to determine how the water would be displaced once the pilings are removed.
“Once we get that information in the next couple of months, we’ll have a better idea of what’s going to happen, and that will help us figure out our time line,” Shoemaker said.
The Dickman Mill site has been in DNR’s inventory of projects for some time. Why the pilings there haven’t been removed already is largely due to funding, Shoemaker said.
Removing the pilings will cost somewhere between $700,000 and $900,000, and involves a marine contractor.
“We require a lot from (the contractor) to try to make it as clean and environmentally friendly as possible,” Shoemaker said.
In an ideal world, the pilings would be removed around the same time Metro Parks Tacoma is doing construction work on Dickman Mill Park.
Metro Parks is in the permitting process with the Army Corps of Engineers to start construction to restore a 34-foot tall saw at Dickman Mill Park. Cambia Health Solution donated $2.9 million to Metro Parks in 2017 as part of its 100th anniversary celebration.
About 200 of the pilings at Dickman Mill are on Metro Parks property, but DNR is partnering with the agency to remove them.
Currently, the Creosote Pilings Removal Program has removed 14,461 pilings, or over 21,300 tons of creosote, from Puget Sound since it launched in 2007.
