[2-14-14 NEW DOCUMENT!  Technical Memorandum on K2 Environment Assessments.  Please READ and SHARE.]

I write you today as a 25 year resident of this island and as the director of the Backbone Campaign, a public interest organization that many of you have supported for the past ten years.  I want to express my grave concern and decision to strongly oppose the sale of the K2 facility by Jarden Corporation to Bakkhos Holding, LLC.  Inadequate environmental review of possible/likely industrial contamination at this facility at this time could leave Vashon residents paying a much higher future cost of clean-up, or worse yet, the possible pollution of Vashon's groundwater or sole-source aquifer. [See a marked up excerpt of the Phase 2 HERE]

In 2007, the K2 Sports and a large collection of brands under its umbrella were purchased by Jarden Corporation for $1.2 billion.  Jarden Corporation, based in Rye, NY is a $7 billion-a-year conglomerate that owns over one hundred other consumer brands.  Among the more well known brands owned by Jarden are Mr. Coffee, Oster, Coleman, Yankee Candles, Sunbeam, Margaritaville, Marmot, Kerr, Johnson and Ball Jars.  With the purchase of K2 Sports, Jarden acquired a dynamic set of brands, some of which were developed on Vashon Island over decades of creative work.  Along with that valuable and profitable asset, Jarden also acquired a relatively minor liability, the Vashon manufacturing plant. 

Today, Jarden is about to sell this facility to a cash buyer, Bakkhos Holding, LLC.  Bakkhos is a nine week old LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) with no ties to our community.  K2 Sports/Jarden Corporation is requiring that Bakkhos Holding, LLC indemnify them for all prior contamination of the site.  Though in and of itself an indemnification is not outside the norm, Bakkhos is agreeing to give that indemnification to Jarden without any independent scientific review of Jarden's environmental assessment of the property. and doing so despite early warnings from one of their original team who objected to the indemnification and the nature of the seller-commissioned assessment.

I and others more qualified than I have reviewed the Phase 1 and Phase 2 reports.  So far, the consensus is that the Phase 2 is basically worthless.  The report itself says, "This report is not a comprehensive site characterization and should not be construed as such. The interpretations and conclusions are the result of one day of field work."  I share the opinion that an 18 acre site with over 60 years of industrial impacts cannot be characterized with one day of testing.  Besides that, there are eighteen total "RECs" (recognized environmental conditions) identified in their report.  Nine of those eighteen were not tested at all.  Other of the tests were inexplicably far from the identified RECs and the very methods and protocols suspect. 
 
Were Bakkhos not a cash buyer, but receiving financing through a lending institution, that lender would likely require Jarden to obtain a "No Further Action" (NFA) letter from the Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE) so as to be assured that it was acquiring or lending against an asset rather than a liability.  To obtain an NFA, Jarden/K2 Sports would have to submit the Phase 1 and Phase 2 environmental assessments it commissioned to the DOE to determine that there is no need for additional testing, and do whatever testing if deemed necessary to address data gaps.  Only once those data gaps are addressed and potential clean-up done would DOE have the information that would allow them to issue an NFA letter. 

I met with a representative Bakkhos Holding and Edi-Pure twice, requesting that they work with our community to require this NFA letter.  He refused to even consider it. He refused to investigate our warnings about the Phase 1 and Phase 2 despite early warnings from one of their original team who objected to the indemnification and the nature of the seller-commissioned assessment.  Bakkhos' "good enough for us" attitude robs this community of an opportunity to insist that Jarden take the bad with the good by conducting a thorough characterization of the site with adequate testing, and the environmental clean-up necessary to protect our health, ground water and drinking water for future generations.

Like many of you, I have been frustrated to see nothing come to fruition at the K2 plant for so many years. The general impression has been that our community just couldn't "get it together" to create a project that would "pencil out."  But the current situation reveals a darker side to this story.  Lack of imagination, good ideas and business sense were likely not the only impediments to progress.  I now believe that liability concerns for the facility and grounds have been a cloud over both finding the right buyer and closing a deal. 

IF Jarden's exit strategy has been to seek indemnification without subjecting their environmental assessment to a thorough review in order to avoid additional testing and potential cleanup, THEN a cash-buyer-in-a-rush such as Bakkhos Holding, LLC is the PERFECT match for Jarden, but a TERRIBLE match for Vashon. 

Therefore, I believe that we as a community must:

1. Call upon Jarden/K2 Sports to voluntarily follow the Department of Ecology's NFA letter process before shedding liability for the former K2 factory, and thus concluding a chapter in our Island story with the same positive spirit we enjoyed when K2 was such a vibrant part of our community.
   
   
2. Make our support of Bakkhos Holding, LLC's entrance into our community dependent upon them collaborating with us to protect Vashon's future health and safety by making the NFA letter a precondition for the transfer of liability. And
   
   
3. Engage our King county elected officials along with State and County regulatory agencies to use their full power to guarantee that the K2 site not be burdened with unanswered questions nor our environmental health traded for corporate irresponsibility or the haste of outsiders. 

Please join me in compelling our elected officials and these two corporations to live up to a higher standard for environmental stewardship and accountability on our behalf and the health of future generations to inhabit our beautiful island home.