Tumwater staff begin planned‑action EIS work for brewery brownfields; phase‑2 sampling underway

Tumwater — City staff on May 27 briefed the City Council on the next steps for redevelopment of contaminated brewery properties and related brownfield sites, including underway environmental sampling and plans to prepare a planned‑action environmental impact statement (EIS) under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA).

City Administrator (Parks) and Kelly (economic development lead) told the council that sampling has advanced from Phase 1 to Phase 2 at the Knoll portion of the former Olympia Brewery site and that Phase 2 fieldwork has begun this week at the former WSDOT Olympic Region headquarters site. Kelly said the city is using two main grant tracks: an integrated planning grant (IPG) from the Washington Department of Ecology focused on the WSDOT site and a community‑wide assessment grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency covering multiple opportunity sites, with deliverables that include 15 Phase 1 assessments and 10 Phase 2 assessments.

Why it matters: City staff said the planned‑action EIS — a non‑project, subarea SEPA review — will allow Tumwater to evaluate alternative redevelopment scenarios across a defined study area, identify infrastructure and mitigation needs, and adopt mitigation measures in a planned‑action ordinance so qualifying future…