Eastern State Hospital Landfill, Medical Lake

The work may include excavating waste materials, disposing hazardous substances at a permitted landfill, installing groundwater monitoring wells, and maintaining access roads to the site.

We have reviewed the SEPA checklist and decided the activities will not have negative effects on the environment. 

The SEPA process identifies and analyzes environmental impacts associated with governmental decisions.

Learn more

• Review the draft SEPA checklist and determination of non-significance.
• Visit our Eastern State Hospital Landfill cleanup site page.

Next steps

Ecology will consider all comments received during this public comment period and update the documents as needed.

Site history

Washington state has operated the Eastern State Hospital since around 1891. Sometime before 1975, buildings were demolished and buried on the property, about 100 feet from West Medical Lake. When the demolished buildings were buried, no solid waste regulations in Washington applied to this material, and landfilling was standard practice when buildings were torn down. 

In August 2023, the Gray Road Fire burned in and around the Medical Lake community, including parts of the Department of Social and Health Service’s (DSHS) Eastern State Hospital property and the landfill area. After the Gray Road Fire was out, DSHS staff discovered the historic landfill was burning underground.

In November 2024, Ecology and DSHS signed an agreed order for an interim cleanup action to put out the fire and complete a remedial investigation and feasibility study. After confirming the fire is out, DSHS will fully investigate the contents of the landfill and whether they have contaminated soil and groundwater. The feasibility study will evaluate options for cleaning up the landfill and any contamination it has caused.