FERNDALE, WA. – (KGMI.com) A Whatcom County industrial site was fined nearly $1 million by the state for dangerous waste violations.
The Washington Department of Ecology issued a $900,000 penalty to Treoil Industries for storing what they say was hundreds of thousands of gallons of dangerous waste next to wetlands and a nearby creek.
Treoil Industries is located northwest of Ferndale and has been used for processing oil and other industrial operations since the 1980s.
Ecology says the site has gathered a large amount of dangerous waste over the decades that were left unsecured and often improperly stored.
The threats to the environment led to two multi-million-dollar federal cleanups of the site in 2017 and 2022.
Treoil’s fine does not include cost recovery for those cleanups.
You can watch a short video of the site from this summer below: