BREMERTON — Environmental officials are set to clean up a Washington stream after it spent decades as a U.S. Navy dumping ground.
The Kitsap Sun reports that the stretch of Gorst Creek is filled with rusty car parts, paint cans, batteries and plastic sheeting.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last began preparing last week for the removal of about 8,000 truckloads of trash from the 6-acre site.
The project is estimated to take a year and cost $30 million — a sum the Navy recently agreed to pay after years of legal wrangling.
The Navy is deferring comment about the landfill to the EPA. Legal documents filed by the EPA indicate that the Navy has acknowledged dumping the waste but disputes the agency’s claim that the trash is contaminating the creek.
