Cleanup halted on Tulalip land

Beneath the ground near the Quil Ceda Village retail and casino area on the Tulalip Tribes Reservation lies a potentially harmful slice of U.S. history — containers the military likely used to store chemical-warfare agents decades ago.

A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers team performing a cleanup last month at the former Tulalip Backup Ammunition Storage Depot near Marysville found an empty, rusted 55-gallon drum and soil stained by mustard-agent residue several feet below ground.

When a crew discovered two empty, damaged storage cylinders and broken glassware about a week later, the corps halted its work until October to upgrade its safety equipment.

The four-person team digging at the site in August reported a strange odor, and one worker complained about stinging eyes. Medical evaluations performed on site and at a local hospital revealed no evidence that the crew had been exposed to chemicals, said Steven Cosgrove, corps spokesman.

The U.S. government used the Tulalip facility in World War II to store mustard gas, phosgene and chlorine before shipping them overseas, Cosgrove said.

The government decided in 1949 that it no longer needed the depot and sold the land to the Tulalip Tribes.

In the mid-1990s, the corps discovered an aged snapshot that indicated there may have been chemicals at the site.

"It shows a picture of a soldier sitting by a sign saying, 'Danger, poison gas, do not dig for one year,' " Cosgrove said.

The corps "tried to interview people who may have been around then, and there weren't very many left," he said.

In the post-WWII era, burying chemicals was a typical procedure, seen then as a way to isolate hazardous substances from human contact.

After identifying two suspicious areas, corps teams began digging in June, searching for chemicals, Cosgrove said.

In one spot, they found only debris from logging. But in the second, they uncovered the old containers that likely stored WWII chemicals.

Contrary to previous reports, workers did not find a bomb at the excavation site, Cosgrove said.

The corps plans to resume the cleanup in early October, placing a tent over the excavation site to filter air in and out of the work area, Cosgrove said. The cost of the project, originally $2 million, is expected to double.

The site is one of more than 100 nationwide that the corps suspects housed chemical-warfare material. Thousands of others also may need cleaning.

Workers have yet to remove the items they found at the Tulalip site, Cosgrove said. In coming months, the corps will send any contaminated materials to a facility that will incinerate them.

Charlotte Hsu: 206-464-8349 or chsu@seattletimes.com