Spill clean-up work to wind down in Marathon Park, ramp up in Heritage Park as efforts to remove contaminated sediment from Capitol Lake continue

OLYMPIA - Activity related to clean-up from the Olympia Brewery Transformer oil spill will increase in Heritage Park this week and will begin to wind down in Marathon Park.

Marathon Park has been a staging area for work to remove contaminated sediment from Capitol Lake, with the parking lot closed for public use. Spill responders anticipate decommissioning the Marathon Park staging area by the end of next week.

A staging area for the next phase of sediment removal work will be located in Heritage Park. Set up begins today. Impacts will include:

  • Greenspace: Some greenspace will be fenced off and inaccessible throughout the duration of the cleanup.
  • Pedestrian traffic: The paved walkway will periodically be closed off to pedestrian traffic. The gravel walkway should be accessible throughout the clean-up efforts.
  • Traffic: There will be some traffic impacts this week as equipment is moved into location. Flaggers will be on site to direct traffic when needed.
  • Noise: There will be noise impacts as equipment is delivered and set up this week. There also may be noise impacts from the sediment removal system after it is activated. Some of the noise impacts may occur in evening hours.

No parking impacts are anticipated.

There is not a predicted end date for the response at this time.

The state Department of Ecology is overseeing the clean-up efforts. Updates on the spill effort can be found on the incident web page.