Ground Water Well Installation at Former “A” Avenue Landfill

This September, environmental consultant Anchor QEA will return to the former A Avenue Landfill to continue work on the site’s remedial investigation. The City has retained Anchor QEA to support the assessment of environmental conditions at the former landfill in coordination with the Washington State Department of Ecology.

The contractor was unable to install ground water monitoring wells during the first attempt this spring.  Now the City and contractor will change from a Geoprobe drilling rig to a sonic drilling rig.  A sonic rig is a more heavy-duty drilling rig that utilizes a different technology than the Geoprobe rig that was previously on site to collect soil. The sonic rig uses sonic technology to “cut” a core of soil (as opposed to the Geoprobe rig using direct-push technology to “shove” soil into the sampling device). This method is more successful in penetrating (and retrieving) soil at depth because it uses low-frequency sonic vibrations which can move through more resistant soil formations (even bedrock) which is the main challenge at the site.

The work is scheduled for September 1–3 at the A Avenue site. Trail access may be temporarily reduced on trails 108 and 124 near the landfill during this time.