Centralia officials and health experts urge relocation of state game farm after nitrate tests

OLYMPIA — City and county officials, public health experts and tribal representatives urged the Capital Budget Committee to advance Substitute House Bill 2,668, which would require the Department of Fish and Wildlife to identify alternate locations for the Bob O'Kane (Bob Oak) game farm and to request future capital funding for relocation and remediation.

Rob Hatfield, committee staff, summarized the substitute: Fish and Wildlife must identify one or more alternate locations that do not pose a material risk to municipal or residential water supplies, request predesign funding in the 2027–29 capital budget to evaluate candidates, and later request construction funding in 2029–31; the substitute also requires design funding for remediation of the existing site.

Representative Ed Orcutt (20th District), prime sponsor, said nitrate concentrations detected in 2024 exceeded the EPA maximum contaminant level of 10 milligrams per liter and that at least one well registered readings “nearly 4 times the EPA limit.” Orcutt said that, while he is not seeking to close the farm, the state should begin the relocation and remediation process now to avoid much higher costs later.

City of Centralia Public Works Director Andy Oian said the Fords Prairie well field supplies about 60% of drinking water to roughly 20,000 people and reported a sample “I believe the number was 39.4 per liter nitrate” — roughly four times the EPA limit — pointing to a clear nitrate-loading problem at the farm’s location. City Manager Mike Thomas and Lewis County Public Health officials described ongoing responses (including a $5 million grant to extend municipal service to affected households) but said that infrastructure fixes do not address the root-source contamination.

Mejia Hanlon, director of Lewis County Public Health and Social Services, said the game farm had previously been privately owned and that no environmental studies were done at that time; she said the farm’s 160 acres previously held about 45,000 birds raised over 24 weeks and linked stocking/manure to nitrate loading. Jeff Landrum, county environmental health specialist and state-licensed geologist, warned that nitrate above 10 mg/L poses a well-established health risk — particularly to infants — and described the aquifer’s high susceptibility to leaching and slow natural flushing (estimates of 7–20 years to flush nitrates in this geology).

City and tribal witnesses urged the committee to require WDFW to produce site alternatives and to seek capital funding for remediation and relocation. Staff mentioned a fiscal note prepared for the original bill (just over $1,400,000 in operating costs in the current biennium) but said the substitute stages costs into future capital requests.

What happens next: The committee closed the public hearing on HB 2,668 with the record open for amendments and signaled the bill may be scheduled for executive action; sponsors and staff were instructed to file amendments by the posted deadlines.